- 期刊
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Superconducting Gravimeters Detect Gravity Fluctuations Induced by Mw 5.7 Earthquake along South Pacific Rise Few Hours before the 2011 M_w 9.0 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake
並列摘要
Gravity changes sometimes appear before a big earthquake. To determine the possible sources is important for recognizing the mechanism and further geodynamic studies. During the first two hours on March 11 before the Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, the non-tidal gravity time series of superconducting gravimeters worldwide showed low-frequency (＜ 0.10 Hz) fluctuations with amplitude of ~1 to 4 × 10^(-8) ms^(-2) lasting ~10-20 minutes. Through comparing global seismicity with the arrival times of seismic waves, we find that the fluctuations were induced by the Mw 5.7 earthquake that occurred at 0:14:54.68 at (53.27°S, 118.18°W) along the eastern South Pacific Rise. Several body waves such as P, S are clearly recorded in the station with ~400 km distance to the hypocenter. The fluctuations are in response to the waves that propagate with a velocity of about 4 km s^(-1). Their amplitudes are proportional to the inverse of the epicentral distances even though the fluctuations of European sites were overlapped with waves associated with a smaller, i.e., M_w 2.6, event in Europe during this period. That is, the M_w 5.7 earthquake induced remarkable gravity fluctuations over long distances at stations all over the world. As such, the foreshocks with larger magnitudes occurred before the M_w 9.0 earthquake would have more significant influence on the gravity recordings and the seismic-wave induced component should be removed during the analysis of anomalies prior to a great earthquake in future studies.