Predicting Offshore Swarm Rate Changes by Volumetric Strain Changes in Izu Peninsula, Japan

Abstract:

The eastern offshore of Izu peninsula is one of the well known volcanic active regions in Japan, where magma intrusions have been observed several times since 1980s monitored by strain-meters located nearby. Major swarm activities have been synchronously associated with coseismic and preseismic significant sizes of a volumetric strain changes (Earthquake Research Committee, 2010). We investigated the background seismicity changes during these earthquake swarms using the nonstationary ETAS model (Kumazawa and Ogata, 2013), and have found the followings. The modified volumetric strain change data by removing the effect of earth tides and precipitation as well as removing coseismic jumps have much higher cross-correlations to the background rates of the ETAS model than to the whole seismicity rate change of the ETAS, and further the strain changes precede the background seismicity by lag of about a day. This relation suggests an enhanced prediction of earthquakes in this region using volumetric strain measurements. Thus we propose an extended ETAS model where the background seismicity rate is predicted by the time series of preceding volumetric strain changes. Our numerical results for Izu region show consistent outcomes throughout the major swarms in this region.

References

Earthquake Research Committee (2010). Report on "Prediction of seismic activity in the Izu Eastern Region" (in Japanese), http://www.jishin.go.jp/main/yosoku/izu/index.htm

Kumazawa, T. and Ogata, Y. (2013). Quantitative description of induced seismic activity before and after the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake by nonstationary ETAS model, J Geophys.Res. 118, 6165-6182.