Skip to main content
Earth, Planets and Space
Download PDF

Fault models of unusual tsunami in the 17th century along the Kuril trench

Earth, Planets and Space volume 60, pages 925–935 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Geologic evidence has shown that unusual tsunami deposits are traced as high as 18 m above the current sea level or as far as 1–4 km inland from the shoreline on the Pacific coast of eastern Hokkaido, and that such unusual tsunamis have recurred at about 500 year interval with the most recent event in the 17th century. We computed coastal tsunami heights along the Hokkaido and Sanriku coasts and inundation at five coastal marshes in Hokkaido where the tsunami deposits were mapped. Three types of faults were tested: giant fault, tsunami earthquake and interplate earthquake models. The giant fault model, with the largest seismic moment, yields the lowest tsunami heights and smaller inundation than the distribution of tsunami deposits in Hokkaido, while the tsunami heights are largest in Sanriku. The tsunami earthquake model yields little inundation in Hokkaido and the smallest heights in Sanriku. The interplate earthquake model produces the largest tsunami heights and inundation in Hokkaido, reproducing the distribution of tsunami deposits on the Nemuro coast. The multi-segment interplate earthquake with variable slip (10 m on Tokachi and 5 m on Nemuro segment) can reproduce the distribution of tsunami deposits on the Tokachi coast as well, and considered as the best source model for the 17th century tsunami, although the Sanriku tsunami heights are more than 3 m, exceeding an inferred detection threshold of historical documents. The seismic moment is estimated as 8 × 1021 N m (Mw 8.5). Comparison with the recent 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake indicates that the 17th century tsunami source was longer and located further offshore at shallower depth.

References

  • Aida, I., Reliability of a tsunami source model derived from fault parameters, J. Phys. Earth, 26, 57–73, 1978.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atwater, B. F., R. Furukawa, E. Hemphill-Haley, Y. Ikeda, K. Kashima, K. Kawase, H. M. Kelsey, A. L. Moore, F. Nanayama, Y. Nishimura, S. Odagiri, Y. Ota, S.-C. Park, K. Satake, Y. Sawai, and K. Shimokawa, Seventeenth-century uplift in eastern Hokkaido, Japan, The Holocene, 14(4), 487–501, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Earthquake Research Committee, Long-term evaluation of seismicity along the Kuril Trench, Publications of Earthquake Research Committee, II, 1–74, 2004 (in Japanese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Geological Survey of Japan, Tsunami inundation maps for the Pacific coast of Hokkaido, Digital Geological Map series, EQ-1 (CD-ROM), 2004 (in Japanese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamada, N. and Y. Suzuki, Re-examination of aftershocks of the 1952 Tokachi-oki earthquake and a comparison with those of the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake, Earth Planets Space, 56, 341–345, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hatori, T., Source area of the tsunami off the Nemuro Peninsula in 1973 and its comparison with the tsunami in 1894, Special Bull. Earthq. Res. Inst. Univ. Tokyo, 13, 67–76, 1974 (in Japanese with English abstract).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatori, T., Tsunami magnitude and wave source regions of historical Sanriku tsunamis in northeast Japan, Bull. Earthq. Res. Inst. Univ. Tokyo, 50, 397–414, 1975 (in Japanese with English abstract).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatori, T., Source area of the east Hokkaido tsunami generated in April, 1843, Bull. Earthq. Res. Inst. Univ. Tokyo, 59, 423–431, 1984 (in Japanese with English abstract).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirakawa, K., Y. Nakamura, and Y. Nishimura, Mega-tsunamis since last 6500 years along the Pacific coast of Hokkaido, Chikyu Monthly, Special Issue No. 49, 173–180, 2005 (in Japanese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirata, K., E. Geist, K. Satake, Y. Tanioka, and S. Yamaki, Slip distribution of the 1952 Tokachi-oki earthquake (M 8.1) along the Kuril trench deduced from tsunami waveform inversion, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 2196, doi:10.1029/2002JB001976, 2003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirata, K., Y. Tanioka, K. Satake, S. Yamaki, and E. L. Geist, The tsunami source area of the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake estimated from tsunami travel times and its relationship to the 1952 Tokachi-oki earthquake, Earth Planets Space, 56, 367–372, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyndman, R. D., M. Yamano, and D. A. Oleskevich, The seismogenic zone of subduction thrust faults, Island Arc, 6, 244–260, 1997.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ikeda, Y., Implication of active fault study for the present-day tectonics of the Japan arc, Active Fault Res., 15, 93–99, 1996 (in Japanese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Imamura, A., Past tsunamis of the Sanriku coast, Japanese J. Astron. Geophys., 11, 79–93, 1934.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iwasaki, T. and A. Mano, Two-dimensional numerical simulation of tsunami run-ups in the Eulerian description, Proc. 26th conf. Coastal Engineering, JSCE, 70–72, 1979 (in Japanese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ito, T., S. Yoshioka, and S. Miyazaki, Interplate coupling in northeast Japan deduced from inversion analysis of GPS data, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 176, 117–130, 2000.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IUGG/IOC Time Project, Numerical method of tsunami simulation with the leap-frog scheme, IOC Manuals and Guides, No. 35, 126 pp., UNESCO, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanamori, H., Mechanism of tsunami earthquakes, Phys. Earth Planet. Inter., 6, 246–259, 1972.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelsey, H. M., K. Satake, Y. Sawai, B. Sherrod, K. Shimokawa, and M. Shishikura, Recurrence of postseismic coastal uplift, Kuril subduction zone, Japan, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L3315, doi:10.1029/ 2006GL026052, 2006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mansinha, L. and D. E. Smylie, The displacement fields of inclined faults, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 61, 1433–1440, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nanayama, F., K. Satake, R. Furukawa, K. Shimokawa, B. F. Atwater, K. Shigeno, and S. Yamaki, Unusually large earthquakes inferred from tsunami deposits along the Kuril trench, Nature, 424, 660–663, 2003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nanayama, F., R. Furukawa, K. Shigeno, A. Makino, Y. Soeda, and Y. Igarashi, Nine unusually large tsunami deposits from the past 2000 years at Kiritappu marsh along the southern Kuril Trench, Sediment. Geol., 200, 275–294, 2007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Okamura, Y., T. Tsujino, K. Arai, T. Sasaki, K. Satake, and M. Joshima, Fore arc structure and plate boundary earthquake sources along the southwestern Kuril subduction zone, J. Geophys. Res., 113, B06305, doi:10.1029/2007JB005246, 2008.

  • Satake, K., Detection of Kuril subduction-zone earthquakes from remote historic records in Honshu, Japan, between 1656 and 1867, Ann. Geophys., 27, 369–378, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Satake, K., F. Nanayama, S. Yamaki, Y. Tanioka, and K. Hirata, Variability among tsunami sources in the 17th-21st centuries along the southern Kuril trench, in Tsunamis: Case Studies and Recent Developments, edited by K. Satake, 157–170, Springer, 2005.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Satake, K., K. Hirata, S. Yamaki, and Y. Tanioka, Re-estimation of tsunami source of the 1952 Tokachi-oki earthquake, Earth Planets Space, 58, 535–542, 2006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sawai, Y., Evidence for the 17th-century tsunamis generated on the Kuril- Kamchatka subduction zone, Lake Tokotan, Hokkaido, Japan, J. Asian Earth Sci., 20, 903–911, 2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sawai, Y., K. Satake, T. Kamataki, H. Nasu, M. Shishikura, B. F. Atwater, B. P. Horton, H. M. Kelsey, T. Nagumo, and M. Yamaguchi, Transient uplift after a 17th-century earthquake along the Kuril subduction zone, Science, 306, 1918–1920, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shimamoto, T., T. Seno, and S. Uyeda, A simple rheological framework for comparative subductology, AGU Geophys. Monograph, 76 (IUGG volume 16), 39–52, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimazaki, K., Nemuro-oki earthquake of June 17, 1973; A lithospheric rebound at the upper half of the interface, Phys. Earth Planet. Inter., 9, 315–327, 1974.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, W. H. F. and D. T. Sandwell, Global sea floor topography from satellite altimetry and ship depth soundings, Science, 277, 1956–1962, 1997.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suwa, Y., S. Miura, A. Hasegawa, T. Sato, and K. Tachibana, Interplate coupling beneath NE Japan inferred from three-dimensional displacement field, J. Geophys. Res., 111, B04402, doi:10.1029/2004JB003203, 2006.

  • Tanioka, Y. and K. Satake, Fault parameters of the 1896 Sanriku tsunami earthquake estimated from tsunami numerical modeling, Geophys. Res. Lett., 23, 1549–1552, 1996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanioka, Y., K. Hirata, R. Hino, and T. Kanazawa, Slip distribution of the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake estimated from tsunami waveform inversion, Earth Planets Space, 56, 373–376, 2004a.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanioka, Y., Y. Nishimura, K. Hirakawa, F. Imamura, I. Abe, Y. Abe, K. Shindou, H. Matsutomi, T. Takahashi, K. Imai, K. Harada, Y. Namegaya, Y. Hasegawa, Y. Hayashi, F. Nanayama, T. Kamataki, Y. Kawata, Y. Fukasawa, S. Koshimura, Y. Hada, Y. Azumai, K. Hirata, A. Kamikawa, A. Yoshikawa, T. Shiga, M. Kobayashi, and S. Masaka, Tsunami run-up heights of the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake, Earth Planets Space, 56, 359–365, 2004b.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanioka, Y., K. Satake, and K. Hirata, Recurrence of recent large earthquakes along the southernmost Kuril-Kamchatka subduction zone, AGU Geophys. Monograph, 172, 145–152, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tichelaar, B. W. and L. J. Ruff, Depth of seismic coupling along subduction zone, J. Geophys. Res., 98, 2017–2037, 1993.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Utsu, T., Seismicity Studies: A Comprehensive Review, 876 pp., University of Tokyo Press, 1999 (in Japanese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamanaka, Y. and M. Kikuchi, Source processes of the Tokachi-oki earthquake on September 26, 2003 inferred from teleseismic body waves, Earth Planets Space, 55, e21–e24, 2003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. K. Satake

    Present address: Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-0032, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Active Fault Research Center, AIST, Tsukuba, 305-8567, Japan

    K. Satake

  2. Institute of Geology and Geoinformation, AIST, Tsukuba, 305-8567, Japan

    F. Nanayama

  3. Seamus Co., Ltd., Niigata, 950-3304, Japan

    S. Yamaki

Authors
  1. K. Satake
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. F. Nanayama
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. S. Yamaki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

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

Cite this article

Satake, K., Nanayama, F. & Yamaki, S. Fault models of unusual tsunami in the 17th century along the Kuril trench. Earth Planet Sp 60, 925–935 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352848

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352848

Key words

  • Tsunami
  • tsunami deposit
  • numerical simulation
  • paleoseismology
  • Kuril trench
  • multi-segment earthquake