A Simulation of crustal deformation around sourthwest Japan using 3D Finite Element Method

Abstract:

In southwest Japan, the Philippine Sea plate is subducting beneath the Amurian plate at the Nankai Trough. Megathrust earthquakes have been occurred with recurrence intervals of about 100-150 years. Previous studies have estimated co-seismic slip distribution at the 1944 Tokankai and the 1946 Nankai earthquakes and interplate plate coupling along the Nankai Trough. Many of previous studies employed a homogeneous elastic half space or elastic and viscoelastic layers structure. However, these assumptions as mentioned above are inadequate, since inhomogeneous structure is exceled in the real earth result from subducting plate. Therefore, in order to estimate the effect of inhomogeneous structure on the crustal deformation, we calculate crustal deformation due to Megathrust earthquake using 3-dimensional Finite Element Method (FEM). We use FEM software PyLith v2.1. In this study, we construct a finite element mesh with the region of 3000km(SW) × 2300km(NS) × 400km(depth) cover Japanese Islands, using Cubit 13.0. This mesh is considered topography, the Philippine Sea plate, the Pacific plate, Moho discontinuity, and curvature of the earth.
 In order to examine differences of surface displacement between inhomogeneous and homogeneous structures, we use co-seismic slip distribution of the 1944 and 1946 earthquakes estimated by Sagiya and Thatcher (1999). In result, surface elastic response under inhomogeneous structure becomes 30% larger than it’s homogeneous structure at the Muroto cape. This difference indicates that co-seismic slip or plate coupling distribution estimated from Green’s function under an assumption of homogeneous structure is overestimated. Then, we calculate viscoelastic response assuming Maxwell rheology model and viscosity as 1×10¹⁹. As a result, predicted horizontal velocity of viscoelastic response due to the events corresponds to 10 % of observed present deformation. It suggest that spatial pattern of plate coupling might be change when we consider viscoelastic response due to previous earthquakes.