Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Honda, R. Articles by Aoi, S. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Array Back-Projection Imaging of the 2007 Niigataken Chuetsu-oki Earthquake Striking the World’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant

Hot Springs Research Institute of Kanagawa Prefecture, Iriuda 586, Odawara, Kanagawa 250-0031, Japan ryou{at}onken.odawara.kanagawa.jp

Shin Aoi

National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Tennodai 3-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0006, Japan

The 2007 Niigataken Chuetsu-oki earthquake occurred near the Kashiwazaki–Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan, the largest in the world. The strong motions were recorded by seven seismometers installed at the foundation slab (base-mat) of the plant and exceeded the design level of the ground motion for the plant. The strong motion observed by the seismographs in and around the plant show high coherency with three significant pulses. In order to understand the cause of these pulses, the rupture process of the earthquake was estimated using these seismograms. The seismograph network was taken into account as a dense array and semblance-enhanced waveform stacking was performed. By projecting the power of the stacked waveforms onto the fault plane, the asperities that generated significant pulses were successfully separated. The first and third pulses were generated at the hypocenter and the southwest edge of the rupture zone, respectively. The rupture propagated toward the southwest and terminated offshore from the power plant. The overall pattern of the imaged asperities coincides well with the slip distribution determined by conventional waveform inversions.