Fluid Migration Before and During Slow Earthquakes in the Shallow Nankai Subduction Zone

Fluid migration in subduction zones is a key controlling factor of slow and megathrust earthquakes at plate boundaries. During the migration, seismic velocity and heterogeneous structures in its pathways may be temporarily perturbed, preferably triggering slow earthquakes. Here, we show that transie...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of geophysical research. Solid earth 2022-03, Vol.127 (3), p.n/a
Hauptverfasser: Tonegawa, Takashi, Takemura, Shunsuke, Yabe, Suguru, Yomogida, Kiyoshi
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Fluid migration in subduction zones is a key controlling factor of slow and megathrust earthquakes at plate boundaries. During the migration, seismic velocity and heterogeneous structures in its pathways may be temporarily perturbed, preferably triggering slow earthquakes. Here, we show that transient changes of seismic heterogeneity occurred 0–9 months before shallow slow earthquakes in the Nankai subduction zone, Japan, using very long‐term (6–10 years) records of ambient seafloor noise. The heterogeneity changes preceding to shallow slow earthquakes were observed near the margin of the source region, while concurrent changes primarily occurred in the source region. We propose that the heterogeneity changes are attributed to dynamic fluid migration, and the difference in timings reflects the pore pressure level in the corresponding source region. When fluids are supplied to a source region under relatively low pressure, fluids are leaked out from its downdip or updip side, and slow earthquakes occur not immediately but with a time delay of at most 9 months. In the high pore pressure case, slow earthquakes occur immediately with fluid migration from the source region. This study suggests that the heterogeneous seismic structure is possibly changed by fluid migration before slow earthquakes in the Nankai subduction zone. Plain Language Summary While the linkage between fluid and slow earthquakes occurring at the plate boundary of subduction zones has been revealed, such a relationship for very shallow parts close to trench axes remains elusive. In this study, we investigated the temporal variations of seismic velocity and heterogeneous structure beneath the seafloor in the Nankai subduction zone, Japan, using the seismographs observed by a permanent cabled network starting in 2010. The intensities of seismic heterogeneous structures change 0–9 months prior to the shallow slow earthquakes, implying that the heterogeneous structure is altered by fluid migration that affects the slow earthquake generation. In the case of the fluid migration preceding to slow earthquakes, fluids are supplied to the source region with relatively low pore pressure levels, and the pore pressure level there increases until the timing of the slow earthquake generation. In contrast, the case of concurrent fluid migration corresponds to the fluids supplied to the source region with a relatively high pore pressure level, and slow earthquakes occur at the immediate timing of the fluid
ISSN:2169-9313
2169-9356
DOI:10.1029/2021JB023583