The Elusive Role of Aseismic Slip Along a Seaward Dipping Normal Fault in the Indirect Triggering of a Normal Faulting Earthquake Sequence in Northeast Japan Following the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Megathrust

Although blind normal faults are common in subduction environments, their rheology, kinematics and interaction with the upper crust are poorly constrained. A month-long shallow normal faulting sequence in the Ibaraki-Fukushima prefectural border (IFPB), northeast Japan, which followed the M_w9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake (TOE) and culminated in the M_w6.7 Iwaki earthquake, provides a window into megathrust-to-normal fault interaction. Stress change calculations indicate that direct triggering by the TOE co- and post-seismic slip does not provide a plausible explanation for the IFPB earthquake sequence. In quest for an alternative triggering mechanism, we analyzed post-TOE GNSS data from eastern IFPB. A key step in this analysis is the removal of the large-scale post-TOE displacement field, after which a distinct highly-localized strain along the coastline becomes apparent. The accumulation of this strain was mostly aseismic, and migrated with time prior to the Iwaki earthquake in a manner that correlates well with post-TOE local seismicity. We attribute the pre-Iwaki earthquake strain accumulation to aseismic slip along low-angle seaward dipping blind normal fault, activated by the TOE. Stresses transferred by this slip episode accelerated the failure along the IFPB shallow normal faults. This indirect triggering of the Iwaki earthquake sequence by the TOE highlights the complexity of stress transfers in subduction environments.