High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes

Abstract Great earthquakes along the Nankai megathrust in south-western Japan feature in the top priority list of Japan’s disaster management agenda. In May 2019, an alert system was incepted to issue public warnings when the probability of an earthquake occurrence along the Nankai megathrust became...

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Main Authors: Yo Fukushima, Tomoaki Nishikawa, Yasuyuki Kano
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2023-01-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26455-w
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author Yo Fukushima
Tomoaki Nishikawa
Yasuyuki Kano
author_facet Yo Fukushima
Tomoaki Nishikawa
Yasuyuki Kano
author_sort Yo Fukushima
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Great earthquakes along the Nankai megathrust in south-western Japan feature in the top priority list of Japan’s disaster management agenda. In May 2019, an alert system was incepted to issue public warnings when the probability of an earthquake occurrence along the Nankai megathrust became higher than usual. One of the cases that trigger the issuance of public warnings is when a great earthquake occurred and another one of the same scale is anticipated within a short period of time. Although such “twin ruptures” have occurred multiple times along the Nankai megathrust, the quantification of the probability of such twin ruptures has never been attempted. Based on global statistics and local earthquake occurrence history, we estimated the probability of a successive occurrence of two M8 or larger earthquakes within 3 years globally and along the Nankai megathrust to be 5.0–18% and 4.3–96%, respectively. The timing of the second earthquake followed the Omori–Utsu law in global statistics, which allowed the estimation of the probability for the successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes in arbitrary time frames. The predicted probability for the one-week timeframe was 100–3600-fold higher than that of the norm, endorsing the necessity for the warning scheme.
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spelling doaj.art-2213124c4e17404098e07aab96510c922023-01-15T12:08:19ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222023-01-011311910.1038/s41598-022-26455-wHigh probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakesYo Fukushima0Tomoaki Nishikawa1Yasuyuki Kano2International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku UniversityDisaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto UniversityEarthquake Research Institute, University of TokyoAbstract Great earthquakes along the Nankai megathrust in south-western Japan feature in the top priority list of Japan’s disaster management agenda. In May 2019, an alert system was incepted to issue public warnings when the probability of an earthquake occurrence along the Nankai megathrust became higher than usual. One of the cases that trigger the issuance of public warnings is when a great earthquake occurred and another one of the same scale is anticipated within a short period of time. Although such “twin ruptures” have occurred multiple times along the Nankai megathrust, the quantification of the probability of such twin ruptures has never been attempted. Based on global statistics and local earthquake occurrence history, we estimated the probability of a successive occurrence of two M8 or larger earthquakes within 3 years globally and along the Nankai megathrust to be 5.0–18% and 4.3–96%, respectively. The timing of the second earthquake followed the Omori–Utsu law in global statistics, which allowed the estimation of the probability for the successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes in arbitrary time frames. The predicted probability for the one-week timeframe was 100–3600-fold higher than that of the norm, endorsing the necessity for the warning scheme.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26455-w
spellingShingle Yo Fukushima
Tomoaki Nishikawa
Yasuyuki Kano
High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes
Scientific Reports
title High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes
title_full High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes
title_fullStr High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes
title_full_unstemmed High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes
title_short High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes
title_sort high probability of successive occurrence of nankai megathrust earthquakes
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26455-w
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