Systematic differences in energy radiation processes between regular and
inland low-frequency earthquakes in and around the focal area of the
2008 Mw 6.9 Iwate-Miyagi, Japan, earthquake
Abstract
Many unknowns exist regarding the energy radiation processes of the
inland low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) often observed beneath
volcanoes. To evaluate their energy radiation characteristics, we
estimated the scaled energy for LFEs and regular earthquakes in and
around the focal area of the 2008 Mw 6.9 Iwate-Miyagi earthquake. We
computed the source spectra for regular earthquakes, deep LFEs, and
shallow LFEs by correcting for the site and path effects from direct
S-waves. We computed the radiated energy and seismic moments, and
obtained the scaled energy (eR) for 1464 regular earthquakes, 169 deep
LFEs, and 52 shallow LFEs. The eR for regular earthquakes is in the
order of 10-5 to 10-4, typical for crustal earthquakes, and tends to
become smaller near volcanoes and shallow LFEs. In contrast, eR is in
the order of 10-7 and 10-6 for deep and shallow LFEs, respectively, one
to three orders of magnitude smaller than that for regular earthquakes.
This result suggests that LFEs are associated with a much lower stress
drop and/or slower rupture and deformation rates than regular
earthquakes. Although the energy magnitudes derived from radiated energy
generally show good agreement with the local magnitudes for the three
types of earthquakes, the moment and local magnitudes show a large
discrepancy for the LFEs. This suggests that the local magnitude based
only on the maximum amplitude of the observed seismic records may not
provide good information on the static sizes of LFEs whose eR values are
substantially different from those of regular earthquakes.