Skip to main content

Volume 57 Supplement 5

Special Issue: Special Section for the 2004 Mid-Niigata Prefecture Earthquake (1)

Multi-fault system of the 2004 Mid-Niigata Prefecture Earthquake and its aftershocks

Abstract

A seismic network was deployed the day after the main shock of the 2004 Mid-Niigata Prefecture Earthquake to determine the major source faults responsible for the main shock and large aftershocks. Using the high-resolution seismic data for five days, three major source faults were identified: two parallel faults dipping steeply to the west located 5 km apart, and another dipping eastward and oriented perpendicular to the west-dipping faults. Strong lateral changes in the velocity of the source area resulted in the locations of the epicenters determined in this study being located approximately 4.3 km west-north-west of those reported by the JMA routine catalogue. The strong heterogeneity of the crust is related to the complex geological and tectonic evolution of the area and therefore the relatively large aftershocks followed around the main shock. This is considered to be responsible for the prominent aftershock activity following the 2004 Niigata event.

References

  • Douglas, A., Joint epicenter determination, Nature, 215, 47–48, 1967.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, The promotion of Earthquake Research—Basic comprehensive policy for the promotion of earthquake observation, measurement, surveys and research, 1999 (in Japanese with English translation).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirata, N. and M. Matsu’ura, Maximum-likelihood estimation of hypocenter with origin time eliminated using nonlinear inversion technique, Phys. Earth Planet. Inter., 47, 50–61, 1987.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirata, N., S. Ohmi, S. Sakai, K. Katsumata, S. Matsumoto, T. Takanami, A. Yamamoto, T. Nishimura, T. Iidaka, T. Urabe, M. Sekine, T. Ooida, F. Yamazaki, H. Katao, Y. Umeda, M. Nakamura, N. Seto, T. Matsushima, H. Shimizu, and Japanese University Group of the Urgent Joint Observation for the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu Earthquake, Urgent Joint Observation of Aftershocks of the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu Earthquake, J. Phys. Earth, 44, 317–328, 1996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirata, N., H. Sato, S. Sakai, A. Kato, and E. Kurashimo, Fault system of the 2004 Mid Niigata prefecture earthquake and its aftershocks, Landslides, 2(2), doi:10.1007/s10346-005-0050-8, 2005.

  • Kato, A., E. Kurashimo, N. Hirata, T. Iwasaki, and T. Kanazawa, Imaging the source region of the 2004 Mid-Niigata prefecture earthquake and the evolution of a seismogenic thrust-related fold, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L07307, doi:10.1029/2005GL022366, 2005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kato, A., S. Sakai, N. Hirata, E. Kurashimo, S. Nagai, T. Iidaka, T. Igarashi, Y. Yamanaka, S. Murotani, T. Kawamura, T. Iwasaki, and T. Kanazawa, Spatiotemporal variations of the aftershock distributions during one month after the occurrence of the 2004 mid-Niigata prefecture earthquake, Earth Planets Space, 2005 (submitted).

    Google Scholar 

  • Natural Gas Mining Society and the Society of Exploration for Oil in the Continental Shelf, Oil and natural gas resources in Japan (Revised), 520 pp., 1992.

  • Obara, K., S. Hori, K. Kasahara, Y. Okada, and S. Aoi, Hi-net: High sensitivity seismograph network in Japan, Eos Trans. AGU, 81(48), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract S71A-04, 2000.

  • Takeda, T., H. Sato, T. Iwasaki, N. Matsuta, S. Sakai, T. Iidaka, and A. Kato, Crustal structure in the northern Fossa Magna region, central Japan, from refraction/wide-angle reflection data, Earth Planets Space, 56, 1293–1299, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Urabe, T. and S. Tsukada, A workstation-assisted processing system for waveform data from microearthquake networks, Abstracts of Spring Meeting of Seismological Society of Japan, 70, 1991 (in Japanese).

  • Wessel, P. and W. H. F. Smith, New version of the generic mapping tools released, Eos Trans. AGU, 76, 329, 1995.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shin’ichi Sakai.

Rights and permissions

Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sakai, S., Hirata, N., Kato, A. et al. Multi-fault system of the 2004 Mid-Niigata Prefecture Earthquake and its aftershocks. Earth Planet Sp 57, 417–422 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03351827

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03351827

Key words