The slow earthquake spectrum in the Japan Trench illuminated by the S-net seafloor observatories

Abstract

Slow earthquake segmentation The Japan Trench is responsible for disastrous megathrust earthquakes like the 2011 Tohoku-Oki quake. Nishikawa et al. used new observations from the S-net ocean-bottom seismic network to map slow earthquakes—disturbances that do not cause ground shaking—along the Japan Trench (see the Perspective by Houston). They found that the area that ruptured during the 2011 quake was bounded by areas that have large numbers of slow earthquakes. A segmentation likely caused the 2011 rupture to cease, an observation that is important for assessing risk from future major earthquakes. Science , this issue p. 808 ; see also p. 750