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Deep Drilling for Earthquake Clues
The 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tsunami were remarkable in many regards, including the rupturing of shallow trench sediments with huge associated slip (see the Perspective by Wang and Kinoshita). The Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project rapid response drilling expedition sought to sample and monitor the fault zone directly through a series of boreholes. Chester et al. (p. 1208) describe the structure and composition of the thin fault zone, which is predominately comprised of weak clay-rich sediments. Using these same fault-zone materials, Ujiie et al. (p. 1211) performed high-velocity frictional experiments to determine the physical controls on the large slip that occurred during the earthquake. Finally, Fulton et al. (p. 1214) measured in situ temperature anomalies across the fault zone for 9 months, establishing a baseline for frictional resistance and stress during and following the earthquake.
Abstract
Large coseismic slip was thought to be unlikely to occur on the shallow portions of plate-boundary thrusts, but the 11 March 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake [moment magnitude (Mw) = 9.0] produced huge displacements of ~50 meters near the Japan Trench with a resultant devastating tsunami. To investigate the mechanisms of the very large fault movements, we conducted high-velocity (1.3 meters per second) friction experiments on samples retrieved from the plate-boundary thrust associated with the earthquake. The results show a small stress drop with very low peak and steady-state shear stress. The very low shear stress can be attributed to the abundance of weak clay (smectite) and thermal pressurization effects, which can facilitate fault slip. This behavior provides an explanation for the huge shallow slip that occurred during the earthquake.
