A seismic gap in the eastern margin of the Sea of Japan as inferred from the time-space distribution of past seismicity

Abstract Based on the spatial distribution of the focal areas from previous large earthquakes, a significant seismic gap was found off the coast of the Akita Prefecture at the eastern margin of the Sea of Japan. We forecast that the 75 km segment of plate boundary may be ruptured by a large thrust earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 in the near future. The time of occurrence is uncertain, but the recurrence interval of large earthquakes in this region suggests that it will be no later than the end of next century. The time sequence of large earthquakes in the eastern margin of the Sea of Japan shows a systematic shortening of the earthquake interval for the past 250 years. This feature is simulated successfully by a simple mechanical model that represents a plate boundary by segmented blocks, each of which is composed of a spring friction slider system. We further propose to revise the conventionally accepted plate boundary between the Eurasian and Okhotsk plates in the eastern margin of the Sea of Japan; the observed data of seismic activity and recent crustal deformation indicate that the southern part of the plate boundary traverses the land region from Niigata to Otari along the Shinanogawa seismic belt. The fault geometries of previous large earthquakes show that the mode of plate convergence in the eastern margin of the Sea of Japan is a collision type rather than a simple eastward subduction as was postulated in early studies.     

Degassing history and carbon cycle of the Earth: From an impact-induced steam atmosphere to the present atmosphere

The recent theoretical studies on the formation and evolution of the atmosphere and oceans of the Earth are reviewed. Impact degassing during accretion of the Earth would probably generate an impact-induced steam atmosphere on the proto-Earth. At the end of accretion, the steam atmosphere became unstable and condensed to form the proto-ocean with almost the present mass of ocean. The steam atmosphere would have thus evolved to the proto-CO₂ atmosphere during the earliest history of the Earth because CO in the proto-atmosphere may be photochemically converted to CO₂. However, CO₂ in the proto-atmosphere has decreased with time through the global carbon cycle which may have stabilized the terrestrial environment against an increase in the solar luminosity. The continental growth during Hadean and Archean would therefore have a significant influence on the carbon cycle and the surface temperature. It is also suggested that the continental growth is a necessary condition for the terrestrial environment to evolve to the present state. Both the impact degassing and the subsequent continuous degassing are suggested to have played a major role in the formation and evolution of the atmosphere and ocean. In particular, most of N₂ may have been produced by the impact degassing during accretion, and the contribution of the subsequent continuous degassing is at most 10% for N₂. As a consequence, after the CO₂ level decreased to less than 1 bar, the atmosphere may have been at about 1 bar and composed mainly of N₂ for most of the subsequent history of the Earth.     

High-pressure transformations in silicates,germanates, and titanates with ABO3 stoichiometry

High-pressure phase transformations were investigated for two silicates, MgSiO₃ and ZnSiO₃; six germanates, MGeO₃ and six titanates, MTiO₃ (M=Ni, Mg, Co, Zn, Fe, and Mn) at about 1,000°C and pressures up to ca. 30 GPa. CoGeO₃ was found to assume the ilmenite form. The ilmenite phases were confirmed to transform in the following schemes: to perovskite in MgSiO₃ and MnGeO₃, to corundum in MgGeO₃ and ZnGeO₃, to rocksalt plus rutile in ZnSiO₃ and CoGeO₃ and to rocksalt plus TiO₂ (possibly of some denser structure) in NiTiO₃, MgTiO₃, CoTiO₃, ZnTiO₃ and FeTiO₃. In the case of FeTiO₃, the corundum form appeared as an intermediate phase. The possibility that the corundum type MnTiO₃ might transform to some denser modification could not be excluded. The compound NiGeO₃ was nonexistent throughout the pressure range studied. High-pressure phases of ABO₃ (A=Ni, Mg, Co, Zn, Fe, and Mn; B=Si, Ge and Ti) are summarized, and those stabilized at pressures higher than 20 GPa are discussed.     

Synthesis of γ-Mg2SiO4

Magnesium orthosilicate with spinel structure (γ-Mg₂SiO₄) was synthesized at about 250 kbar and 1000°C. Unit cell dimension was established to be 8.076 ± 0.001Å. X-ray powder diffraction pattern revealed a significant difference between γ-Mg₂SiO₄ and other γ-M₂SiO₄ spinels (M = Fe, Co, and Ni) in the intensities of (111) and (331) reflections, both of which are virtually absent in the Mg₂SiO₄ spinel. This feature could be thoroughly understood by the calculation of the intensities for several silicate spinels.     

A fluidized landslide on a natural slope by artificial rainfall

An experiment to induce a fluidized landslide by artificial rainfall was conducted on a natural slope at Mt. Kaba-san in the village of Yamato, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The experimental slope was 30 m long, 5 m wide, and the average slope gradient was 33°. A landslide initiated 24,627.5 s (410 m/27.5 s) after the start of sprinkling at a rainfall intensity of 78 mm/h. The landslide mass was 14 m long and 1.2 m deep (at maximum). It first slid, then fluidized, and changed into a debris flow. The travel distance was up to 50 m in 17s. The apparent friction angle of the fluidized landslide was 16.7°. Formation of the sliding surface was detected by soil-strain probes. Motion of the surface of the failed landslide mass was determined by stereo photogrammetry.     

Carbon and water cycling in a Bornean tropical rainforest under current and future climate scenarios

We examined how the projected increase in atmospheric CO₂ and concomitant shifts in air temperature and precipitation affect water and carbon fluxes in an Asian tropical rainforest, using a combination of field measurements, simplified hydrological and carbon models, and Global Climate Model (GCM) projections. The model links the canopy photosynthetic flux with transpiration via a bulk canopy conductance and semi-empirical models of intercellular CO₂ concentration, with the transpiration rate determined from a hydrologic balance model. The primary forcing to the hydrologic model are current and projected rainfall statistics. A main novelty in this analysis is that the effect of increased air temperature on vapor pressure deficit (D) and the effects of shifts in precipitation statistics on net radiation are explicitly considered. The model is validated against field measurements conducted in a tropical rainforest in Sarawak, Malaysia under current climate conditions. On the basis of this model and projected shifts in climatic statistics by GCM, we compute the probability distribution of soil moisture and other hydrologic fluxes. Regardless of projected and computed shifts in soil moisture, radiation and mean air temperature, transpiration was not appreciably altered. Despite increases in atmospheric CO₂ concentration (C_a) and unchanged transpiration, canopy photosynthesis does not significantly increase if C_i/C_a is assumed constant independent of D (where C_i is the bulk canopy intercellular CO₂ concentration). However, photosynthesis increased by a factor of 1.5 if C_i/C_a decreased linearly with D as derived from Leuning stomatal conductance formulation [R. Leuning. Plant Cell Environ 1995;18:339–55]. How elevated atmospheric CO₂ alters the relationship between C_i/C_a and D needs to be further investigated under elevated atmospheric CO₂ given its consequence on photosynthesis (and concomitant carbon sink) projections.     

Tidal triggering of earthquakes in the subducting Philippine Sea plate beneath the locked zone of the plate interface in the Tokai region, Japan

We found a characteristic space–time pattern of the tidal triggering effect on earthquake occurrence in the subducting Philippine Sea plate beneath the locked zone of the plate interface in the Tokai region, central Japan, where a large interplate earthquake may be impending. We measured the correlation between the Earth tide and earthquake occurrence using microearthquakes that took place in the Philippine Sea plate for about two decades. For each event, we assigned the tidal phase angle at the origin time by theoretically calculating the tidal shear stress on the fault plane. Based on the distribution of the tidal phase angles, we statistically tested whether they concentrate near some particular angle or not by using Schuster's test. In this test, the result is evaluated by p-value, which represents the significance level to reject the null hypothesis that earthquakes occur randomly irrespective of the tidal phase angle. As a result of analysis, no correlation was found for the data set including all the earthquakes. However, we found a systematic pattern in the temporal variation of the tidal effect; the p-value significantly decreased preceding the occurrence of M ≥ 4.5 earthquakes, and it recovered a high level afterwards. We note that those M ≥ 4.5 earthquakes were considerably larger than the normal background seismicity in the study area. The frequency distribution of tidal phase angles in the pre-event period exhibited a peak at the phase angle where the tidal shear stress is at its maximum to accelerate the fault slip. This indicates that the observed small p-value is a physical consequence of the tidal effect. We also found a distinctive feature in the spatial distribution of p-values. The small p-values appeared just beneath the strongly coupled portion of the plate interface, as inferred from the seismicity rate change in the past few years.     

Molecular dynamics study of the crystal structure and phase relation of the GeO2 polymorphs

A two-body interatomic potential model for GeO₂ polymorphs has been determined to simulate the structure change of them by semi-empirical procedure, total lattice energy minimization of GeO₂ polymorphs. Based on this potential, two polymorphs of GeO₂; α-quartz-type and rutile-type, have been reproduced using the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation techniques. Crystal structures, bulk moduli, volume thermal expansion coefficients and enthalpies of these polymorphs of GeO₂ were simulated. In spite of the simple form of the potential, these simulated structural values, bulk moduli and thermal expansivities are in excellent agreement with the reliable experimental data in respect to both polymorphs. Using this potential, MD simulation was further used to study the structural changes of GeO₂ under high pressure. We have investigated the pressure-induced amorphization. As reported in previous experimental studies, quartz-type GeO₂ undergoes pressure-induced crystalline-to-amorphous transformation at room temperature, the same as other quartz compounds; SiO₂, AlPO₄. Under hydrostatic compression, in this study, α-quartz-type GeO₂ transformed to a denser amorphous state at 7.4 GPa with change of the packing of oxygen ions and increase of germanium coordination. At higher pressure still, rutile-type GeO₂ transformed to a new phase of CaCl₂-type structure as a post-rutile candidate. Received: 29 July 1996 / Revised, accepted: 30 April 1997