Integrated Seismicity Model to Detect Pairs of Possible Interdependent Earthquakes and Its Application to Aftershocks of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake and Sequence of the 2014 Kermadec and Rat Islands Earthquakes

Abstract:

We introduce an integrated seismicity model to stochastically evaluate the time intervals of consecutive earthquakes at global scales, making it possible to detect a pair of earthquakes that are remotely located and possibly related to each other. The model includes seismicity in non-overlapping areas and comprehensively explains the seismicity on the basis of point process models, which include the stationary Poisson model, the aftershock decay model following Omori-Utsu's law, and/or the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model. By use of this model, we examine the possibility of remote triggering of the 2011 M6.4 eastern Shizuoka earthquake in the vicinity of Mt. Fuji that occurred 4 days after the Mw9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and 4 minutes after the M6.2 off-Fukushima earthquake that located about 400 km away, and that of the 2014 Mw7.9 Rat Islands earthquake that occurred within one hour after the Mw6.7 Kermadec earthquake that located about 9,000 km away and followed two large (Mw6.9, 6.5) earthquakes in the region. Both target earthquakes occurred during the passage of surface waves propagating from the previous large events. We estimated probability that the time interval is shorter than that between consecutive events and obtained dynamic stress changes on the faults. The results indicate that the M6.4 eastern Shizuoka event may be rather triggered by the static stress changes from the Tohoku-Oki earthquake and that the Mw7.9 Rat Islands event may have been remotely triggered by the Kermadec events possibly via cyclic fatigue.