A study showed that “swaying” may precede some great earthquakes

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New research has shown that Japan’s land masses shifted from east to west to east again in the months leading up to the strongest earthquake in the country’s recorded history, a 9-magnitude earthquake in 2011 that killed more than 15,500 people.

These movements, which researchers call “wobbling”, may have the potential to alert seismologists to a greater risk of major earthquakes in the subduction zone. These devastating events occur as one of the Earth’s tectonic plates slides beneath another. This jam molestation reaches or connects the ground, until the jam tears or eventually breaks and causes an earthquake.

The results are published today (30 April) in the journal Nature.

“What happened in Japan was a massive but very slow bobbing – something never before seen,” said Michael Beavis, co-author of the paper and professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.

“But are all giant earthquakes preceded by oscillators of this type? We do not know because we do not have enough data. This is another thing to watch when assessing seismic hazards in subduction areas such as those in Japan, Sumatra, Andes and Alaska.”

Beavis said that the swaying would have become almost imperceptible for people standing on the island, the equivalent of only a few millimeters a month over a period of five to seven months. But the movement was evident in the data recorded by more than 1,000 GPS stations spread across Japan, in the months leading up to the Tohoku Aoki earthquake on March 11.

The research team, which included scientists from Germany, Chile, and the United States, analyzed that data and experienced a reverse shift in the Earth – about 4 to 8 millimeters east, then to the west, then to the east. These movements were noticeably different from the fixed and cyclic transformations that the Earth’s masses constantly make.

“The world is divided into plates that always move one way or another,” Beavis said. “The movement is not unusual. This mode of movement is unusual.”

Beavis said the swaying could indicate that in the months before the earthquake, the plate under the Philippine sea started with something called a “slow slipping event”, which is the relatively gentle and “silent” fluctuation of two adjacent ocean pages beneath Japan, which eventually led to a great roar Turning west and down he led the Pacific slab plate and its plates beneath Japan, generating powerful seismic waves that shook the entire country.

The 2011 earthquake caused widespread damage throughout Japan. It has permanently diverted large portions of Japan’s main Honshu Island, several meters to the east. Tsunami waves launched more than 40 meters high. More than 450,000 people lost their homes. Many nuclear reactors melted at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in a continuous flow of toxic radioactive material into the atmosphere and forcing thousands of people close to flee their homes. It was the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Researchers studying earthquakes and plate tectonics attempt to determine the approximate size of subsequent large earthquakes and to predict where and when they will occur. When is “more difficult” than “where.”

But it will not be possible to use the results of this study to predict earthquakes in some subduction areas around the world because they do not have the required GPS systems, said Jonathan Bedford, lead author of this study and researcher at the GFZ German Research Center for Earth Sciences.

In 2011, Japan had one of the largest and most powerful GPS surveillance systems in the world. This system provided ample data, and allowed the research team to determine the swing of the Earth’s mass created in the months before the earthquake.

Other countries, including Chile and Sumatra, struck by devastating earthquakes and tsunamis in 2010 and 2004, respectively, had less comprehensive systems at the time of these disasters.

Researchers analyzed similar data from the 2010 Chile earthquake, and found evidence of a similar wobble. Bedford said the data “is only good enough to capture the signal”.

“We really need to monitor all major subduction areas with high-density GPS networks as soon as possible,” he said.

Sediments may control the site and magnitude of large earthquakes

more information:
A thousand-kilometer fluctuation over months before sunken earthquakes, Nature (2020). Doi: 10.1038 / s41586-020-2212-1, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2212-1

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