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Subduction-zone megathrust earthquakes: New perspectives from insitu data & laboratory analyses

In the last decade or two, an enormous amount of new findings has been gained about activities and characteristics of seismogenic zones. They include a variety of phenomena along subduction zone megathrusts, ranging from creep to earthquakes including slow earthquakes surrounding the locked zone, high-velocity slip and low frictional strength. 
In this SPEPS article collection, we invite authors to contribute innovative research or reviews on subduction zone megathrusts, both in presently active ones and onland outcrops. The approaches may include, but are not limited to, results from a wide range of disciplines including observational geodesy and seismology, geological and geophysical studies of present and ancient subduction zones, borehole logging and monitoring, laboratory experiments, and theoretical and numerical modeling.

  1. Megasplay fault branching from plate boundaries of subduction zones is thought to be important sources of earthquakes and tsunamis. In this study, we performed structural and geochemical analyses on a fossiliz...

    Authors: Ryota Hasegawa, Asuka Yamaguchi, Rina Fukuchi, Yohei Hamada, Nobuhiro Ogawa, Yujin Kitamura, Gaku Kimura, Juichiro Ashi and Tsuyoshi Ishikawa
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2019 6:36
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  2. Concentrations of arsenic (As) and its chemical forms were determined on deep-sea sediments drilled at three sites of Nankai Trough, off the Kii Peninsula, Japan. Those sediments were analyzed to document the ...

    Authors: Harue Masuda, Haruka Yoshinishi, Shigeshi Fuchida, Tomohiro Toki and Emilie Even
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2019 6:28
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  3. This study investigates the thermal maturity structure of the accretionary wedge along with the thermal history of sediments during wedge formation using a numerical simulation. The thermal maturity, which is ...

    Authors: Ayumu Miyakawa, Masataka Kinoshita, Yohei Hamada and Makoto Otsubo
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2019 6:8
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  4. We assess the dependence of megathrust geometry near the updip edge of the Nankai seismogenic zone according to the slip tendency of the megathrust based on a reprocessed 3D PSDM seismic volume image and Inter...

    Authors: Masataka Kinoshita, Kazuya Shiraishi, Evi Demetriou, Yoshitaka Hashimoto and Weiren Lin
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2019 6:7
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  5. Combined knowledge on the magnitude as well as the orientation of paleo-stress is usually not given. Based on drilling investigations and laboratory experiments, we are able to provide both, constraints on pal...

    Authors: Yoshitaka Hashimoto, Michael Stipp, Jonathan C. Lewis and Frank Wuttke
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2019 6:3
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  6. Seismic interferometry is one of the most effective techniques for detecting temporal variations in seismic velocity caused by large earthquakes. Before the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake (Mw9.0) near the Japan Trenc...

    Authors: Miyuu Uemura, Yoshihiro Ito, Kazuaki Ohta, Ryota Hino and Masanao Shinohara
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:87
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  7. Noble gas abundance and isotope data from 12 drilling mud gas samples obtained during IODP Expeditions 338 and 348 provide new insights on fluid origin and fluid migration in the inner accretionary prism below...

    Authors: Thomas Wiersberg, Sebastian B. Hammerschmidt, Shigeshi Fuchida, Achim Kopf and Jörg Erzinger
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:79
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  8. Ocean drilling in the Nankai Trough forearc suggests a new scenario for the evolution of the Nankai subduction zone. Continuous subduction since the Late Cretaceous has been a common tectonic scenario, althoug...

    Authors: Gaku Kimura, Hiroaki Koge and Takeshi Tsuji
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:78
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  9. The study investigates the in-situ strength of sediments across a plate boundary décollement using drilling parameters recorded when a 1180-m-deep borehole was established during International Ocean Discovery ...

    Authors: Yohei Hamada, Takehiro Hirose, Akira Ijiri, Yasuhiro Yamada, Yoshinori Sanada, Saneatsu Saito, Noriaki Sakurai, Takamitsu Sugihara, Takahiro Yokoyama, Tomokazu Saruhashi, Tatsuhiko Hoshino, Nana Kamiya, Stephen Bowden, Margaret Cramm, Susann Henkel, Kira Homola…
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:70
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  10. The 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake unexpectedly ruptured to the shallowest portion of the plate boundary fault and triggered a large tsunami. The shallow portion had generally been regarded as a seismically stable...

    Authors: Hiroaki Koge, Yasuhiro Yamada, Akihiro Ohde, Arthur Bauville, Asuka Yamaguchi and Juichiro Ashi
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:69
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  11. Three-dimensional (3D) seismic data from the southern Kumano Basin of southwest Japan image a nested series of moderately sized mass transport deposits (MTDs) that slid from a slope along the seaward side of t...

    Authors: Jason Lackey, Gregory Moore and Michael Strasser
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:65
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  12. The Nankai subduction zone off the Kii Peninsula, Japan, has a large potential to generate megathrust earthquakes in the near future. To investigate the temporal variation of stress or strain in the Nankai sub...

    Authors: Tatsunori Ikeda and Takeshi Tsuji
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:62
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  13. We examined the temporal changes in the internal stresses and pore fluid pressures of a submarine mass transport deposit (MTD) in the Akkeshi Formation of the Upper Cretaceous–Paleocene Nemuro Group, eastern H...

    Authors: Makoto Otsubo, Hajime Naruse and Ayumu Miyakawa
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:59
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  15. Megathrust earthquakes have occurred repeatedly at intervals of 100 to 150 years along the Nankai Trough, situated in the southwest of Japan. Given that it has been 70 years since the last event, the occurrenc...

    Authors: Masaru Nakano, Mamoru Hyodo, Ayako Nakanishi, Mikiya Yamashita, Takane Hori, Shin-ichiro Kamiya, Kensuke Suzuki, Takashi Tonegawa, Shuichi Kodaira, Narumi Takahashi and Yoshiyuki Kaneda
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2018 5:30
    Content type: Research article Published on: