Coseismic rupturing stopped by Aso volcano during the 2016 Mw 7.1 Kumamoto earthquake, Japan
A volcanic end to an earthquake
The dangerous and active Aso volcanic cluster appears to have put an early end to the damaging magnitude 7.1 Kumamoto earthquake that struck Japan in April 2016. Lin et al. found that the fault rupture stopped underneath the Aso caldera. The unzipping of the fault ended where the rocks went from cold and brittle to a more liquid-like magmatic mush. This distinctive example shows how abrupt changes in rock properties can terminate fault rupture and cap the size of an earthquake.
Science, this issue p. 869
Abstract
Field investigations and seismic data show that the 16 April 2016 moment magnitude (Mw) 7.1 Kumamoto earthquake produced a ~40-kilometer-long surface rupture zone along the northeast-southwest–striking Hinagu-Futagawa strike-slip fault zone and newly identified faults on the western side of Aso caldera, Kyushu Island, Japan. The coseismic surface ruptures cut Aso caldera, including two volcanic cones inside it, but terminate therein. The data show that northeastward propagation of coseismic rupturing terminated in Aso caldera because of the presence of magma beneath the Aso volcanic cluster. The seismogenic faults of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake may require reassessment of the volcanic hazard in the vicinity of Aso volcano.
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Supplementary Material
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Figs. S1 to S6
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Science
Volume 354 | Issue 6314
18 November 2016
18 November 2016
Copyright
Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Submission history
Received: 30 June 2016
Accepted: 7 October 2016
Published in print: 18 November 2016
Acknowledgments
We thank K. Sado, S. Takahashi, S. Hirata, and K. Osono for assistance in the field; M. Miyawaki for discussions during this study; and B. Di and N. Akiyama for help in arranging the field work and processing the images. We acknowledge the Disaster Information Laboratory (DIL), National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience for kindly providing seismic data. The raw data for focal mechanisms, foreshocks, and aftershocks are available directly from DIL. This work was partially supported by a Science Project (no. 15K01248) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.
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