Japan's Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

The magnitude 9.0 Tohoku or Sendai Earthquake ( Fig. 1 ) struck just off the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan on 11 March 2011 making it the fourth largest earthquake to be recorded since 1900, and the largest Japanese earthquake since modern seismometers were developed 130 years ago. Despite the earthquake being much more powerful than had been expected from the subduction zone east of Honshu, the earthquake preparedness of Japan resulted in relatively little earthquake damage—despite the protracted shaking with ground accelerations up to three times that of gravity. However, it was the resulting 10–15 metre high tsunami waves that wreaked havoc along the coastal plain, resulting in a death toll in the tens of thousands and an on‐going drama at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant. Modern seismology has its origins in the analyses of the 1906 San Francisco and 1923 Great Kanto earthquakes. The 2011 Tohoku (or ‘northeast’) earthquake looks set to similarly significantly advance our understanding of earthquakes and tsunamis due to the unprecedented volume of seismic, GPS, tide gauge and video data available. There is much information to be gained on how large earthquakes rupture, how buildings behave under prolonged severe shaking and how tsunamis propagate.

Figure 1 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Tohoku earthquake global displacement wavefield from IRIS. http://www.iris.edu/hq/files/iris_news/images/Sendai_RS.jpg