Fig. 3

Comparison between the strain rate and background seismicity rate. a Short-wavelength features from the E–W strain rate before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake (modified from (e) of Menesses-Gutierrez and Sagiya (2016)) Negative strain rate indicates contraction. The two black stars denote the epicenters of the 1964 Niigata (lower) and 2019 Yamagata-Oki (upper) earthquakes. b Common logarithm of the background seismicity rate (\(\mu\)-values) (same figure as Fig. 2a). Gray lines mark the surface traces of active Quaternary faults. c Correlation between the background seismicity rate (\(\mu\)-values) and E–W strain rate. Black points are median value of \(\mu\) in each 10-nm/year-strain-rate bin