[S13-6] Earthquake source mechanics VI

[S13-6-02] Near-fault Tilt Motion and Conjugate Faulting

^○Eiichi Fukuyama (National Research Intstitute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience, Tsukuba, Japan)

There have been reports of conjugate faults that have ruptured during earthquakes. However, it is still unclear whether or not these conjugate faults ruptured coseismically during earthquakes. In this paper, we investigated near-fault ground tilt motions observed at the IWTH25 station during the 2008 Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku earthquake (Mw 6.9). Since near-fault tilt motion is very sensitive to the fault geometry on which the slip occurs during an earthquake, these data make it possible to distinguish between the main fault rupture and a rupture on the conjugate fault. We examined several fault models that have already been proposed and confirmed that only the models with a conjugated fault could explain the tilt data observed at IWTH25. The results support the existence of simultaneous conjugate faulting during the main rupture. This will contribute to the understanding of earthquake rupture dynamics because the conjugate rupture releases the same shear strain as that released on the main fault, and thus it has been considered quite difficult for both ruptures to accelerate simultaneously.