Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 100, No. 1, pp. 384–391, February 2010, doi: 10.

1785/0120090126

Short Note
Source Fault of the 2007 Chuetsu-oki, Japan, Earthquake
by Hiroe Miyake, Kazuki Koketsu, Kazuhito Hikima,* Masanao Shinohara,
and Toshihiko Kanazawa

Abstract The 2007 Chuetsu-oki, Japan, earthquake is the world’s first major earth-
quake upon a source fault that extends beneath a nuclear power plant and is also char-
acterized by difficulty determining the source fault plane. Centroid Moment Tensor
solutions indicate an Mw 6.6 reverse-faulting crustal earthquake with conjugate fault
planes dipping to the northwest and southeast. Early results of aftershock locations
suggest that either northwest-dipping plane or southeast-dipping plane can be the
source fault plane of this earthquake. We carried out source inversions and empirical
Green’s function simulations of observed seismograms; however, they resulted in
similar waveform residuals for the two fault planes. We then determined the relative
locations of earthquake asperities to the hypocenter using travel-time differences of
strong-motion pulses and relocated the aftershocks observed by ocean bottom
seismometers deployed in the source region. These results imply that slips mainly
occurred on the southeast-dipping fault plane. This implication was later confirmed
by results of reflection surveys. During the earthquake, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
nuclear power plant experienced stronger ground motions than those anticipated at
the time of design. The ground motions consist of three seismic pulses that correspond
to three asperities. The first and second pulses arose from rupture propagation to the
plant, while the compact asperity on the distant southeast-dipping fault plane and its
S-wave radiation pattern are responsible for the significant third pulse.

Introduction
The Chuetsu-oki earthquake occurred at 10:13 (Japan Chuetsu-oki earthquake occurred in the region connecting
Standard Time [JST]) on 16 July 2007 in Niigata prefecture, the Niigata-Kobe and Japan Sea Eastern Margin tectonic
along the west coast of Central Japan (Fig. 1a). The earth- zones as shown in Figure 1a (Sagiya et al., 2000; Earthquake
quake is characterized by difficulty determining the source Research Committee, 2003). The velocity structure in this
fault plane from seismic, geodetic, and tsunami data. The region is so complex (e.g., Kato et al., 2006) that it was dif-
Centroid Moment Tensor (CMT) solutions indicate that this ficult to determine the source fault planes of past events, such
earthquake is a reverse-faulting event with a moment as the 2004 Chuetsu earthquake sequence (yellow star in
magnitude of 6.6 and conjugate nodal planes dipping to Fig. 1b; e.g., Hikima and Koketsu, 2005) and the 1964
the northwest and southeast. A source fault plane is usually Niigata earthquake. In fact, for six months after the 2007
identified from a distribution of aftershocks. As shown in Chuetsu-oki earthquake, there was a controversy as to the
Figure 1b, most of the aftershocks determined by the Japan location of the actual source fault.
Meteorological Agency (JMA) in the 12 hours following the Another significant feature of this earthquake was that
earthquake occurred in an area located off the coast, south- the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant (K-K plant
west of the mainshock hypocenter. However, the three- in Fig. 1b) of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)
dimensional (3D) aftershock distribution in Figure 1c shows is located in the source region. Seven reactors within the K-K
not only a major trend dipping to the southeast but also a plant experienced much stronger ground motions and longer
minor trend dipping to the northwest, so that we were unable periods than those anticipated at the time of plant design
to determine the source fault plane. In addition, the 2007 (TEPCO, 2007). The strong-motion seismographs installed
on the base mats of seven reactors within the plant, as shown
*Now at Seismic Design Group, R&D Center, Tokyo Electric Power
as KK1 to KK7 in Figure 2, were in fact the closest observa-
Company, Inc.(TEPCO), 4-1, Egasaki-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama 230- tional instruments to the earthquake. The observed ground
8510, Japan. accelerations are characterized by three seismic pulses

384
Short Note 385

Figure 1. Geographic setting, distribution of the mainshock and aftershocks of the 2007 Chuetsu-oki earthquake, CMT solution, and the
locations of seismograph stations. (a) Niigata prefecture is located near the connection between (1) the Niigata-Kobe and (2) Japan Sea
Eastern Margin tectonic zones along the west coast of Central Japan. (b) Purple star, epicenters of the 2007 Chuetsu-oki earthquake; purple
dots, aftershocks within 12 hours of the mainshock; yellow star, the 2004 Chuetsu earthquake, as determined by JMA; blue square indicates
the location of the K-K plant, which houses seismographs KK1 to KK7; triangles, seismic stations whose records were used in this study.
(c) 3D distribution of the mainshock and aftershocks within the area outlined by the black rectangle in (b).

indicated as pulses 1, 2, and 3 in Figure 2b. The peak ground power plants as well. This analysis can lead to settlement
acceleration of pulse 3 at KK1 is 680 cm= sec2 , which is of the controversy on the source fault.
2.5 times greater than the design ground motion (TEPCO,
2007). Not only the peak ground accelerations but also the
response spectra in Figure 2c are significantly over the Source Models
design spectra in a broad period range. The periods of the Four kinds of waveform analyses were performed for
dominant pulses are longer than the natural periods of determining the source fault plane: point source analysis
safety-critical structures and facilities at the plant. However, and finite source inversion of teleseismic records and finite
the structures suffered only minor damage as a result of the source inversion and empirical Green’s function simulation
ground accelerations (e.g., Cyranoski, 2007; Normile, 2007). of strong-motion records. We first estimated the focal
We investigate the reasons for these errors in risk assess- mechanism and hypocenter depth of the earthquake from
ment by analyzing the source fault of the 2007 Chuetsu-oki the moment tensor inversion of teleseismic P-wave motions
earthquake because such reasons are seismologically inter- observed at 34 stations of the International Federation of
esting and are important for the seismic safety of nuclear Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN). We confirmed that
386 Short Note

Figure 2. (a) Map of the K-K plant. The seismographs KK1 to KK7 are installed on the base mats of seven reactors aligned along the
coast. (b) Sections of acceleration seismograms of the east–west component in cm= sec2 observed at the K-K plant during the mainshock.
(c) Comparison of response spectra of the ground accelerations observed at KK2 (red) and assumed for KK2 at the time of plant design
(black) (TEPCO, 2007). The response spectra were calculated with 5% damping.

the conjugate fault planes in the CMT solution were almost fault planes of 32 km in length by 24 km in width such that
equivalent to the two trends identified in the distribution of they intersect along a horizontal line at the hypocenter depth
aftershocks (Fig. 1c). of 9 km (Fig. 3a). The upper terminating edges of the faults
We then performed finite source inversions (Kikuchi were confined to a depth beneath surficial sediments, and the
et al., 2003) of the previously described teleseismic records northwest-dipping plane was not extended beyond the coast,
to determine the detailed geometry and depths of the conju- as most of the onland vertical displacements were observed
gate fault planes. The best fit of synthetic to observed seis- to be subsidence (Geographical Survey Institute, 2007).
mograms was accomplished with strikes/dips of 34°/36° To determine the detailed slip distribution on each con-
and 214°/54° for the southeast- and northwest-dipping fault jugate plane, we carried out source inversions (Yoshida et al.,
planes, respectively, though these teleseismic inversions 1996) of strong-motion records observed at 12 of the stations
for the two conjugate fault planes resulted in similar wave- plotted as the light blue square and triangles in Figure 1b.
form residuals. We fixed the epicenter of 37.53824 N and Considering the complex velocity structures in this area,
138.61744 E (Earthquake Research Institute, University of we constructed an adaptive 1D model for each station in
Tokyo; personal communication), and the hypocenter (point advance by inverting ground motion waveforms (Hikima
of rupture initiation) at a depth of 9 km resulted in the smal- and Koketsu, 2005) from an Mw 4.4 aftershock with a simple
lest degree of variance for the two conjugate fault planes. As source mechanism (small red stars in Fig. 3b,c). Using the
the hypocenter is located close to the intersection of the two resulting velocity structure models, we obtained the slip dis-
trends in the 3D aftershock distribution, we arranged two tributions shown in Figure 3b,c for the southeast-dipping

Figure 3. (a) 3D display of the southeast- and northwest-dipping fault planes, which intersect at the hypocenter depth of 9 km (red star).
(b) Slip distribution recovered by strong-motion inversion for the southeast-dipping plane. Also shown: are the locations of the K-K plant
(blue square), the epicenters of the mainshock and Mw 4.4 aftershock (red stars), and the first (blue star) and third (green star) asperities
located by joint hypocenter determination. Pink rectangles represent the asperities identified by the empirical Green’s function simulation.
(c) As for (b) but for the northwest-dipping plane.
Short Note 387

planes and northwest-dipping planes, respectively, from the asperities located close to the zones of large slip, as shown
source inversions of velocity seismograms filtered with a by pink rectangles in Figure 3b,c. The simulated seismo-
frequency band of 0.03 to 0.5 Hz. The main rupture prop- grams on the two conjugate planes again show similar
agates southwestward along strike with a speed of around performance in comparison with the observed ground accel-
2:6 km= sec; however, the inversions performed with the erations, velocities, and displacements at the K-K plant and
two conjugate planes yielded almost identical waveform other strong-motion stations (Fig. 5), as long as the high
residuals (Fig. 4), meaning that we were again unable to stress drop of 40 MPa is acceptable for the third asperity
determine which plane was the source fault of the 2007 on the southeast-dipping plane, while the average stress drop
Chuetsu-oki earthquake. The seismic moments for the south- is around 20 MPa. The overall waveform analyses previously
east- and northwest-dipping planes were respectively esti- described proposed that both the fault planes are possible.
mated to be 1:2 × 1019 N m and 1:4 × 1019 N m, which
correspond to Mw 6.7.
The predominant frequencies of the seismograms Evidence Supporting the Southeast-Dipping
observed at KK1 to KK7 are higher than the upper limit Fault Plane
of the frequency band used in the strong-motion inversions,
so that it is necessary to confirm the validity of our source Additional support that the southeast-dipping fault
model by simulating the broadband ground motions at the plane is the source fault plane comes from (1) relocation
K-K plant. For this task, we employed the empirical Green’s of rupture starting points of asperities using strong-motion
function method (Irikura, 1986), and again used the records pulses, (2) aftershock observation by ocean-bottom seis-
of the Mw 4.4 aftershock with a frequency band of 0.2 to mometers (OBSs), and (3) reflection surveys in the source
10 Hz. We estimated the size and stress drop of the three region.

53.505 43.214 15.363 53.505 43.214 15.363

KK1 KK1 KK1 KK1 KK1 KK1
NS EW UD NS EW UD

47.818 27.066 12.560 47.818 27.066 12.560

KK5 KK5 KK5 KK5 KK5 KK5
NS EW UD NS EW UD

1.771 2.068 1.256 OBS 1.771 2.068 1.256 OBS

NIG016 NIG016 NIG016 SYN SYN
NIG016 NIG016 NIG016
NS EW UD NS EW UD

1.557 1.180 1.047 1.557 1.180 1.047

NIG004 NIG004 NIG004 NIG004 NIG004 NIG004
NS EW UD NS EW UD

.987 1.976 1.046 .987 1.976 1.046

NIG005 NIG005 NIG005 NIG005 NIG005 NIG005
NS EW UD NS EW UD

1.051 1.063 1.902 1.051 1.063 1.902

NIGH12 NIGH12 NIGH12 NIGH12 NIGH12 NIGH12
NS EW UD NS EW UD

8.129 2.827 4.431 8.129 2.827 4.431

NIG024 NIG024 NIG024 NIG024 NIG024 NIG024
NS EW UD NS EW UD

.609 .677 .516 .609 .677 .516

NIGH07 NIGH07 NIGH07 NIGH07 NIGH07 NIGH07
NS EW UD NS EW UD

2.731 1.749 2.237 2.731 1.749 2.237

NIG026 NIG026 NIG026 NIG026 NIG026 NIG026
NS EW UD NS EW UD

.604 .585 .380 .604 .585 .380

NIG001 NIG001 NIG001 NIG001 NIG001 NIG001
NS EW UD NS EW UD

.801 .811 1.190 .801 .811 1.190

NIGH15 NIGH15 NIGH15 NIGH15 NIGH15 NIGH15
NS EW UD NS EW UD

.378 .795 .652 .378 .795 .652

FKSH21 FKSH21 FKSH21 FKSH21 FKSH21 FKSH21
NS EW UD NS EW UD

0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 .0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 .0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 6 .0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 .0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 .0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 6
TIME (sec) TIME (sec) TIME (sec) TIME (sec) TIME (sec) TIME (sec)

Figure 4. (Left) Comparison of observed (red) and synthetic (black) velocity seismograms in cm= sec computed for the source inversion
result on the southeast-dipping fault plane shown in Figure 3b. (Right) As in the left panel but for the northwest-dipping plane in Figure 3c.
Stations are illustrated as the light blue square and triangles in Figure 1b.
388 Short Note

KK1 EW component KK1 NS component

Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm) Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm)
MAX = 665 MAX = 89.1 MAX = 30.41 MAX = 296 MAX = 75.2 MAX = 21.62

obs.

syn.

NIG005 EW component NIG005 NS component

Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm) Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm)
MAX =138 MAX = 6.4 MAX = 0.77 MAX = 105 MAX = 4.8 MAX = 0.45

obs.

syn.

NIG024 EW component NIG024 NS component

Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm) Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm)
MAX = 126 MAX = 14.7 MAX = 2.12 MAX = 212 MAX = 17.3 MAX = 3.09

obs.

syn.

0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25
s s s s s s

KK1 EW component KK1 NS component

Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm) Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm)
MAX = 665 MAX = 89.1 MAX = 30.41 MAX = 296 MAX = 75.2 MAX = 21.62

obs.

syn.

NIG005 EW component NIG005 NS component

Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm) Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm)
MAX = 138 MAX = 6.4 MAX = 0.77 MAX = 105 MAX = 4.8 MAX = 0.45

obs.

syn.

NIG024 EW component NIG024 NS component

Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm) Acc. (cm/s2) Vel. (cm/s) Disp. (cm)
MAX = 126 MAX = 14.7 MAX = 2.12 MAX = 212 MAX = 17.3 MAX = 3.09

obs.

syn.

0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25
s s s s s s

Figure 5. (Upper) Comparison of observed and synthetic seismograms computed for the empirical Green’s function simulation result on
the southeast-dipping fault plane shown in Figure 3b. (Lower) As in the upper panel but for the northwest-dipping plane in Figure 3c.

The first support comes from relocation of rupture start- grams cannot resolve the zone into separate asperities. In
ing points of asperities using strong-motion pulses. We contrast to pulse 1, pulse 3 arrived at the seven reactors at
aligned the seven seismograms observed at the K-K plant such similar times. This finding implies that the third asperity is
that the initial P-wave arrivals matched the calculated travel independently related to small zones of large slip in the south-
times (Fig. 2b). We picked the arrivals of pulses 1 and 3 in ern parts of the slip distributions shown in Figure 3b,c, as the
Figure 2b at the positions indicated by the vertical blue and reactors are located at approximately equal distances from
green bars, respectively. We then found that the arrival of each of the zones.
pulse 1 was delayed in proportion to the distance of each re- To further test these interpretations regarding the loca-
actor from the hypocenter. This finding indicates that the first tions of the asperities associated with the seismic pulses, we
asperity, corresponding to pulse 1, is located in a zone of large picked the arrivals of the initial P-wave and pulse 1 on the
slip close to the hypocenters shown in Figure 3b,c. It is likely seismograms recorded at 22 stations (including KK1 to
that this zone also includes the second asperity corresponding KK7) in Figure 1b and determined the rupture starting point
to pulse 2 because the distance between the first and second of the first asperity relative to the hypocenter. This joint
asperities is so small that the inversion of long-period seismo- hypocenter determination (Douglas, 1967) identified the
Short Note 389

Figure 6. (a) Horizontal distribution of aftershocks relocated using OBS data by Shinohara et al. (2008) (pink dots). The slip distribution
on the southeast-dipping fault plane (Fig. 3b) underlies the epicenters of the mainshock and Mw 4.4 aftershock relocated in this study (red
stars) and the location of the K-K plant (blue square). The blue line indicates the reflection profile conducted by TEPCO (2008). (b) Their
vertical distribution in the northwest–southeast cross section with the hypocenters of the relocated mainshock and Mw 4.4 aftershock (red
stars). (c) Vertical distribution of aftershocks determined by JMA without OBS data during the same period (purple dots). Also shown are the
locations of the mainshock and Mw 4.4 aftershock determined by JMA.

rupture starting point of the first asperity to be a short dis- at a depth of 7.5 km with an error of within 1 km in depth
tance to the southeast of the hypocenter at a depth of 9 km was located at the position of the green stars to the west of the
with an error of within 1 km in depth, at a similar depth to K-K plant in Figure 3b,c. Because there is no zone of large
that of the hypocenter. Therefore, the rupture starting point of slip around the green star in Figure 3c, the third asperity
the first asperity shown as the blue stars in Figure 3b,c can be should be located on the southeast-dipping plane as shown
located on both of the two conjugate planes, close to their in Figure 3b.
line of intersection. The arrival of pulse 3 was only picked The second support for the southeast-dipping fault
on the seismograms of KK1 to KK7, KZK, and ADM plane is an aftershock distribution determined with OBS
(Fig. 1b) because pulse 3 is contaminated by the long tail observations. Shinohara et al. (2008) deployed 32 OBSs
of pulse 2. The rupture starting point of the third asperity in and around the earthquake source region from 25 July

Figure 7. Reflection profile along a survey line in Figure 6 from the K-K plant to the northwest offshore (TEPCO, 2008). Colored lines
indicate linearments identified by TEPCO (2008), among which the dashed ones were assumed to be related to the source fault plane of the
2007 Chuetsu-oki earthquake. Blue dots, aftershocks relocated using OBS data to the west of the K-K plant.
390 Short Note

to 28 August 2007 to obtain an accurate aftershock distribu- effect (Somerville, 2003; Koketsu and Miyake, 2008) mostly
tion. The arrivals of direct P- and S-waves were picked from southwestward from the hypocenter to the K-K plant, as well
the seismograms recorded by the OBSs and onland stations, as the hanging-wall effects pointed out by Cirella et al.
and then the aftershock hypocenters were precisely deter- (2008). The plant is not located in the forward rupture direc-
mined using the arrival times with the double-difference tion of the third pulse (pulse 3 in Fig. 2b), but it is possible
method (Waldhauser and Ellsworth, 2000), and the velocity that the maximum S-wave motion due to the radiation pattern
structure model obtained through a seismic exploration in the can occur in the direction of the plant. Furthermore, the high
same region. The relocated hypocenters obviously indicate stress drop within the third compact asperity is also able to
that the southeast-dipping plane and few aftershocks oc- generate such pulselike waves at the K-K plant. These are
curred in the zones of large slip (Fig. 6a,b), though the reasons for the underestimate at the time of plant design,
hypocenters determined by JMA without OBS data during though the primary reason should be considered as an over-
the same period still suggest the minor trend dipping to sight of the source fault of the 2007 Chuetsu-oki earthquake
the northwest (Fig. 6c) as in Figure 1c. Mori (2008a) and at that time.
Yukutake et al. (2008) also inferred the southeast-dipping
plane from aftershock relocation using the land seismic net-
work data. Data and Resources
The third support comes from reflection surveys per-
Seismograms and earthquake catalog were provided
formed after the earthquake by TEPCO (2008). Two surveys
from the National Research Institute for Earth Science and
lines separated by about 20 km were deployed from the K-K
Disaster Prevention (K-NET, KiK-net, F-net, and Hi-net),
plant to the northwest offshore along the fault width direc-
Japan Meteorological Agency, Tokyo Electric Power Com-
tion. The obtained seismic profile (Fig. 7) clearly shows
pany (TEPCO), Niigata prefectural government, and Interna-
southeast-dipping linearments to a depth of around 13 km.
tional Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN).
They coincide with the aftershocks relocated around the sur-
The TEPCO and FDSN data were obtained from the Associa-
vey line and so should be related to the source fault of the
tion for Earthquake Disaster Prevention and the Incorporated
2007 Chuetsu-oki earthquake.
Research Institutions for Seismology data management sys-
tem, respectively. Relocated aftershocks were obtained from
Conclusions Shinohara et al. (2008).
In summary, the most likely source model of the 2007
Chuetsu-oki earthquake consists of major slips on the south- Acknowledgments
east-dipping fault plane. The first and second asperities
appear to be located near the intersection of the conjugate We thank an anonymous reviewer and Michel Bouchon, associate edi-
tor of Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, for constructive com-
fault planes between the hypocenter and the K-K plant and ments. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Special Purposes
the third asperity to the west of the K-K plant. The southeast- from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (No. 19900003) and
dipping plane is also supported by relocation of rupture start- the Special Project for the Earthquake Disaster Mitigation in Tokyo Metro-
ing points of asperities, aftershock relocation based on politan Area from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and
the OBS observations, and reflection surveys in the source Technology of Japan.
region. Regarding the possibilities of minor slips on the
northwest-dipping plane near the hypocenter, Takenaka et al.
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