thThe 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

LONG-PERIOD GROUND MOTION SIMULATION OF 2004 OFF THE KIIPENINSULA EARTHQUAKES AND PREDICTION OF FUTURE M8 CLASSEARTHQUAKES ALONG NANKAI TROUGH SUBDUCTION ZONE,SOUTH OF JAPAN ISLAND
1

Chiaki Yoshimura1, Yu Yamamoto and Yoshiaki Hisada
12

Disaster Prevention Research Section, Technology Center, Taisei Corporation, Yokohama, Japan
Email : yosimura@eng.taisei.co.jp
2
Professor, Dept. of Architecture, Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan

ABSTRACT :We simulate long-period ground motions of observed Magnitude 7 class earthquake and predict those of future
Magnitude 8 class large subduction earthquakes along Nankai Trough, south off Japanese archipelago. The
numerical simulations are performed by a large-scale finite element method considering three-dimensional
subsurface structure including both of propagation pass structure and large-scale sedimentary basin structure ofKanto plain on which Tokyo metropolitan is located. To verify the three-dimensional subsurface ground model,
we simulate the 2004 off the Kii peninsula earthquake that occurred near Nankai Trough. The soft layer of thesedimentary wedge along Nankai trough has the effect to elongate the duration of ground motion and lessen theamplitude. We simulated the ground motion of the Tokai-Tonankai coupled earthquake. Long period groundmotion reaches Kanto plain about 130 seconds after the rupture starts. The principal motion continues morethan 4 minutes. The model shown in this study still has a limitation to underestimate the amplified groundmotions in the Kanto plain. It is necessary to adjust velocity structure and Q value to obtain a better model.
KEYWORDS:Tonankai Earthquake, Tokai Earthquake, Finite Element Method, Sedimentary
Wedge, Underground structure model, Kanto Plain

1. INTRODUCTIONNankai Trough is the convergent boundary where Philippine Sea plate is subducting under the Southwesternpart of Japanese archipelago. Historically, large thrust earthquakes of Magnitude 8 have occurred repeatedly
with the recurrence interval of 100 to 150 years. They are named Tokai, Tonankai and Nankai earthquake (Fig.
1). The latest ones are 1944 Tonankai earthquake (M7.9) and 1946 Nankai earthquake (M8.0). The next M8class large earthquake is supposed to occur in near future, and it is very important issue for disaster prevention
in Japan.
The long period ground motions generated at the focal regions of these large earthquakes propagate long
distance to large sedimentary basins such as Knato plain where Tokyo metropolitan is located. Those motions
are amplified by sedimentary basin and shake the long period structures such as high-rise buildings and oil tanks.
Therefore, it is important to evaluate the earthquake ground motions considering the appropriate modeling of
the long propagation path structure and sedimentary basin structure. For this purpose, numerical simulations ofearthquake ground motions by large-scale finite differences method(FDM) and finite elements method (FEM)
have been studied .
Two MJMA 7.1 and MJMA 7.4 (Japan Meteorological Agency Magnitude) occurred on September 5, 2004 off theKii peninsula. Those epicenters are located in the vicinity of the focal region of Tonankai earthquake. Longperiod ground motions excited by these earthquakes were observed nationwide. Therefore, these Off the Kii
peninsula earthquakes are good examples to verify the subsurface ground model including propagation path andKanto basin.

th

The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China
Numerical simulations of the Off the Kii peninsula earthquakes are studied by Yamada and Iwata(2005),
Hayakawa et al.(2005) and Ikegami et al.(2008). Along Nankai Trough, the low velocity layer called
Sedimentary Wedge exists (Nakanishi et al.(2002) ). Yamada and Iwata(2005) and Ikegami et al.(2008) pointout that the Sedimentary Wedge causes the long duration of ground motions.
In this paper, we construct three-dimensional subsurface ground model considering the sedimentary wedge inthe propagation path and the sedimentary basin structure of Kanto plain. Next, we perform numerical simulationof the Off the Kii peninsula earthquake(MJMA 7.1) by a large-scale finite element method and compared theresults to the observed records. Finally, we predict future M8 class earthquake.

Fig.1 M8 earthquakes along Nanakai trough, the epicenter of the 2004 off the Kii peninsula earthquake
and model area for FEM calculation

2. SUBSURFACE GROUND MODELWe constructed the three-dimensional subsurface ground model for the area of 564.8km x 299.2 km as shown in
Fig.1. Model depth is 49.6km. We modeled the upper surface of Philippine Sea plate, Moho discontinuity
Conrad discontinuity, Sedimentary wedge along Nankai trough and sedimentary basin structure of Kanto plain.
Figure 2 shows the depth of those boundaries. Using those boundaries, we modeled the domain into 13 layers.
Table 1(a) shows the material properties of the layers.
We constructed the upper surface of Philippine Sea plate (top of layer 11, Fig.2(a)) combining the depth
obtained by Nakamura(1997), Noguchi(1996), Ishida(1992), and Sato et al.(2005). Only for Nakamura(1997),
we assumed 5km shallower depth because Nakamura's surface is the upper surface of seismic activities and theplate surface is shallower than it. We modeled the depth of Moho discontinuity (top of layer 10, Fig.2(b)) basedon Ryoki(1999). The depth of Conrad discontinuity (top of layer 9) was set to be half of Moho discontinuity or
15 km near the Philippine Sea plate.
We modeled the Sedimentary wedge (layer 5,6) along Nankai trough based on Nakanishi et al. (1998) andNakanishi at al. (2002). The left part of Fig 2(c) shows the thickness of the modeled sedimentary wedge. The P
wave velocity (Vp) obtained by Nakanishi increases along the depth. We modeled it into 2 layers. Vp of theshallower part than 3km is 2.7km/s and that of deeper part is 4.0km/s. S wave velocity and density was given
based on Ludwig et al. (1970).

thThe 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China
We set the thickness of Philippine Sea plate (layer 11,12) to be 7km. Upper 2km has low velocity. At thesurface, we modeled the Vs=1.1km/s layer (layer 4) with thickness of 1km at the sea and 0.5km at the land. The
material properties are given based on Yamada and Iwata (2005) except the sedimentary wedge.
We modeled Knato plain into 3 layers (layer 1,2, 3) based on Yamanaka and Yamada(2002). The depth of layerboundaries are shown in the right part of Fig.2(c), Fig.2(d) and Fig.2(e). Q values are set to be equal to that ofeach study at the reference frequency 0.2 Hz. The sea floor and land topography are modeled to be flat. Figure 3shows the vertical sections along Y direction at (a) X=375km section that cut across the sedimentary wedge andincludes the hypocenter of the 2004 Off the Kii peninsula earthquake and (b) X=750 km section that cut acrossKanto plain.
Table 1 Material Property(a) Model A (with sedimentary wedge)(b) Model B (without sedimentary wedge)Layer
12345678910111213Vs(km/s)
0.5
1.01.7
1.1
1.4
2.2
3.23
3.53
3.94
4.6
2.9
4.0
4.7

Vp(km/s)
1.8
2.4
3.2
2.0
2.7
4.0
5.5
6.0
6.7
7.8
5.0
6.8
8.0

density(g/cm3)
1.9
2.1
2.3
2.0
2.4
2.5
2.5
2.7
2.8
3.2
2.4
2.9
3.2

Q
500f
500f
750f
1000f
1000f
1250f
1500f
2500f
3000f
3500f
1500f
3000f
5000f
f:frequency(Hz)Q(at f=0.2Hz)
100
100
150
200
200
250
300
500
600
700
300
600
1000

(a) Top of Phillippine Sea plate(c) Top of Vs=3.23km/s

Layer
12
3
4
5
6
7
8910111213

Vs(km/s)
0.5
1.0
1.7
1.1
3.23
3.23
3.23
3.53
3.94
4.6
2.9
4.0
4.7

Vp(km/s)
1.8
2.4
3.2
2.0
5.5
5.5
5.5
6.0
6.7
7.8
5.0
6.8
8.0

density(g/cm3)
1.9
2.1
2.3
2.0
2.5
2.5
2.5
2.7
2.8
3.2
2.4
2.9
3.2

Q
500f
500f
750f
1000f
1500f
1500f
1500f
2500f
3000f
3500f
1500f
3000f
5000f
f:frequency(Hz)Q(at f=0.2Hz)
100
100
150
200
300
300
300
500
600
700
300
600
1000

(b) Depth of Moho discontinuity(d) Top of Vs=1.7km/s
Fig.2 Depth of layer boundaries.

(e) Top of Vs=1.0km/s

thThe 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China(a) X=357km(b)X=750km
Fig.3 Vertical sections along Y direction( N 29W).
We considered two models as shown in Table1. Model A has the sedimentary wedge and Model B is without
sedimentary wedge. The layer 5 and 6 is replaced with the same material of layer 7. The FEM model isconstructed using tetrahedron. The number of nodes is 15,425,786 and that of elements is 85,536,015. Thelargest elemnet size is 1600m and the smallest is 200m. This model is effective at the period domain more than
4 seconds. The width of elements is chosen so that more than 10 elements exist for the wavelength of Swave ineach layer.
3. SIMULATION OF THE 2004 OFF THE KII PENINSULA EARTHQUAKEThe seismic source of the Off the Kii peninsula earthquake (September 5, 2004, MJMA 7.1) is modeled by apoint source based on Yamada and Iwata(2005). Table 2 shows the source parameter and Fig.4 shows the source
time function.

Table 2 Source parameter

Moment Rate (Nm/s)

Figure 5 shows snapshots of Y (N29W) component of velocity for Model A (with sedimentary wedge) andModel B (without sedimentary wedge). The result of Model A shows the seismic waves are once captured in thesedimentary wedge and are released gradually. This causes long duration of ground motion at a site. On theother hand, the result of Model B shows the seismic waves propagate only concentrically.
X 10 1810864
20051015Time(s)Fig.4 Source time function(a) Model A (with Sedientary Wedge)(b) Model B (without Sedimentary Wedge)

Fig.5 Snapshot of velocity Y (N29W) component

thThe 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China
Figure 7 shows the observed and calculated velocity waveform (North-South component) at the observationsites shown in Fig .6. All the waves are low-pass filtered components longer than 4 seconds. OSKH04, AICH12,
KNGH19 and SZOH41 are KiK-net observation stations operated by NIED. The record of SHS was observed at
the 1st floor of the Shizuoka branch office of Taisei Corporation. The record of SJK was observed in a borehole(G.L. -65m) in the firm gravel layer at Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Fig.6 Strong motion observation site

Fig.7 Comparison of Velocity NS component

thThe 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China
For OSKH04, AICH12 and SHS, Model A (with sedimentary wedge) reproduces the long duration of observed
records. On the other hand, the waveform calculated by Model B (without sedimentary wedge) have shorter
duration and larger amplitude than observed records. The soft layer of sedimentary wedge has the effect toelongate the duration of ground motion and lessen the amplitude.
In this study, the sedimentary basin structure of Osaka plain around OSKH04 and Nobi plain around AICH12
are not considered. Observed records of OSKH04 and AICH12 have short period components more thancalculated waves. These seem to be the ground motions amplified by basin structure.
Although the Kanto plain structure is considered in the model, the calculated wave at SJK underestimate theobserved record. It is necessary to adjust velocity structure and Q value to obtain a better model.
4. PREDICTION OF MAGNITUDE 8 EARTHQUAKE
We simulated the ground motion of the Tokai-Tonankai coupled earthquake. We considered the source model
as shown in Fig.8, which is proposed by Central Disaster Prevention Council, Cabinet office, Government ofJapan. The source parameters are shown in Table 3. Smoothed ramp function was used for source time function.
The model consists of 497 point sources. Tonankai earthquake has 3 asperities (red circles, 5, 6, 7) and Tokaiearthquake has 6 asperities (9-1, 9-2, 10-1, 10-2, 11-1, 11-2). The rupture starts from hypocenter 1 andpropagates to the eastern end near hypocenter 2 taking 68 seconds. Just after the rupture of Tonakai earthquake
ends, the rupture of Tokai earthquake starts from hypocenter 2 and reaches the eastern end taking 40 seconds.
Fig.9 shows the snapshots of velocity of Y (N29W) component at 40, 80, and 130 seconds after rupture start. It
illustrates that a distinct wave front propagates eastward. The wave front reaches the Kanto plain about 130
seconds after the rupture starts.
Fig.10 shows the velocity waveform at SJK. The first large amplitude arrives at 130s and the principal motion
continues more than 4 minutes. Fig.11 shows the pseudo velocity response spectra. They have dominant peaksof 5, 6.5 and 8 seconds.
As discussed in Fig.7, the model has the tendency to underestimate the ground motion in the Kanto plain.
Therefore, this result has the possibility of underestimation. We would like to improve the subsurface groundmodel to obtain quantitatively more accurate prediction.
Table 3 Source parameters

Fig.8 Source Model of Tonakai-Tokai coupled earthquake

Seismic Moment(Nm)
20
Tonankaiasperity 5
4.26×1020
earthquake asperity 6
3.31×10(Mw 8.2)
asperity 7
3.31×1020
back ground
1.21×1021(total)2.30×1021
20
Tokaiasperity 9-1
3.09×1020
earthquake asperity9-2
1.03×10(Mw 8.0)
asperity 10-1
1.05×1020
asperity 10-2
3.49×1019
asperity 11-1
5.50×1019
asperity 11-2
2.00×1019
21
background
1.10×1021(total)
4.72×10

Average
slip
7.9
7.3
7.3
2.7

Rise time(s)
5.56
5.56
5.56
5.56

6.94.8
4.8
3.4
3.9
2.8
1.8

5.6
3.7
3.7
2.8
1.9
1.9
5.6

thThe 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

Fig.9 Snapshot of velocity Y (N29W) component of Tonankai-Tokai coupled earthqukae

Fig.10 Calculated velocity of Tokai-Tonankai coupled earthquake at SJK

Fig.11 Pseudo velocity response
spectra of calculated

5. CONCLUSION
We constructed a three-dimensional subsurface ground model and simulated Off the Kii peninsula earthquake
by a large-scale finite element method. The soft layer of the sedimentary wedge along Nankai trough has theeffect to elongate the duration of ground motion and lessen the amplitude. We simulated the ground motion ofthe Tokai-Tonankai coupled earthquake. Long period ground motion reaches Kanto plain about 130 seconds
after the rupture starts. The principal motion continues more than 4 minutes. The model shown in this study has
a limitation to underestimate the amplified ground motions in the Kanto plain. It is necessary to adjust velocity
structure and Q value to obtain a better model.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is partly supported by Earthquake and Environmental Research Center (EEC) of Kogakuin
University funded by the Frontier Research Promotion Program of MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture,Sports, Science and Technology of Japan), and is partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI (C) (19510186).

thThe 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China
Simulations were carried out with the finite elements method program developed at Carnegie Mellon University(Bao et al.). We would like to thank NIED for providing strong motion records of KiK-net. Some figures aremade using GMT (P. Wessel and W. H. F. Smith).
REFERENCES
Bao, H., J. Bielak, O. Ghattas, L. F. Kallivokas, D. R. O'Hallaron, J. R. Shewchuk, and J. Xu (1998). Largescale simulation of elastic wave propagation in heterogeneous media on parallel computers. Comput. Methods
Appl. Mech. Engrg. 152, 85-102.
Hayakawa, T., T. Furumura, and Y. Yamanaka (2005). Simulation of strong ground motions caused by the 2004
off the Kii peninsula earthquakes. Earth Planets Space 57,191-196.
Ikegami, Y., K. Koketsu, T. Kimura, H. Miyake (2008). Finite-element simulations of long-period groundmotions: Japanese subduction-zone earthquakes and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. J. Seismol. DOI
10.1007/s10950-008-9091-5.
Ishida, M. (1992). Geometry and relative motion of the Phillippine Sea plate and Pacific plate beneath theKanto-Tokai district, Japan. J. Geophys. Res. 97, 489-513.
Ludwig, W. J. et al. (1970). Seismic Refraction, THe Sea, 4, 53-84, edited by Maxwell, A., Wiley InterScience,
New York.
Nakamura, M., H. Watanabe, T. Konomi, S. Kimura and K. Miura (1997). Characteristic activities of subcrustal
earthquakes along the outer zone of southwestern Japan. Annuals of Disas. Prev. Res. Inst., Kyoto Univ. 40:B-1,1-20. (in Japanese)
Nakanishi, A., H. Shiobara, R. Hino, S. Kodaira, T. Kanazawa, and H. Shimamura (1998). Detailed subduction
structure across the eastern Nankai Trough obtained from ocean bottom seismographic profiles. Journal ofGeophysical Research 103:B11, 27151-27168.
Nakanishi, A., N. Takahashi, J.-O. Park, S. Miura, S. Kodaira, Y. Kaneda, N. Hirata, T. Iwasaki, and M.
Nakamura (2002). Crustal structure across the coseismic rupture zone of the 1944 Tonankai earthquake, thecentral Nankai Trough seismogenic zone. Journal of Geophysical Research 107:B1, 10.1029/2001JB000424.
Noguchi, S. (1996) Geometry of the Phillippine Sea slab and the convergent tectonics in the Tokai district,Japan. Zisin 2 49, 295-325. (in Japanese)
Ryoki, K. (1999). Three-dimensional depth structure of the crust and uppermost mantle beneath southwesternJapan ant its regional gravity anomalies. Zisin 2 52, 51-63. (in Japanese)
Sato, H. et al. (2005). Imaging of the earthquake source fault beneath the Tokyo metropolitan region. Science309(5737), 462-464.
Yamada, N. and T. Iwata (2005). Long-period ground motion simulation in the Kinki area during the MJ 7.1
foreshock of the 2004 off the Kii peninsula earthquakes. Earth Planets Space 57, 197-202.
Yamanaka, A. and N. Yamada (2002). Estimation of 3D W-wave velocity model of deep sedimentary layers inKanto plain, Japan, using microtremor array measurements. BUTSURI-TANSA 55:1, 53-65. (in Japanese)