Characteristic Earthquake Sequences near Miyakojima Island, Ryukyu Arc, Japan

Abstract

We found eight M 5.1 characteristic earthquakes regularly occurring since 1966 on the plate boundary between the Eurasian plate and the Philippine Sea plate near Miyakojima Island, the Ryukyu Arc, Japan. The quake recurrence interval was 5.89 years in average, and the standard deviation was only 0.73 years. The accumulating stress presumably ruptured the same asperity enclosed by the creeping zone repeatedly. Also, we found three other groups of small repeating earthquakes of M 4, which occurred close to the hypocenters of the M 5 events. Those groups also occurred regularly and we can consider them to be ‘characteristic’ earthquake sequences. Now, we called those groups A, B, and C. It is not clear whether groups A and B had an intrinsic recurrence interval or if they influenced each other. However, two events of group C occurred within one week after the M 5 quakes, indicating that the M 5 events triggered the group C events whose asperity had suffcient strain energy. No earthquake exceeding M 7, which could change the recurrence intervals, has been observed on the subduction zone around the Ryukyu Islands. Therefore, there should be numerous characteristic earthquake sequences in other areas of the Ryukyu district. We expect that the next M 5 earthquake at 50 km depth on the plate boundary near Miyakojima Island will occur between September 2012 and July 2014 with 70% probability, using the small-sample theory with a log-normal distribution model. Moreover, the M 5 event may be accompanied by an M 4 quake that could rupture the asperity of group C within one week.