Wide-area land subsidence caused by “the 2011 Off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake”

Abstract This paper gives an overview of the crustal deformation caused by “the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake” (hereinafter: “the Tohoku Earthquake”) as detected by the GPS Earth Observation Network (GEONET), a GPS continuous observation system operated by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI), and of ground deformation resulting from liquefaction triggered by the earthquake motion as determined by a leveling survey. A very large part of the Japanese archipelago was affected by the crustal deformation caused by the mainshock. The subsidence in the Pacific coastal area of the Tohoku region is especially remarkable. Based on a resurvey after the earthquake, the GSI revised the coordinates and heights of survey marks, including the Origin of the Japanese Horizontal Control Network and the Origin of the Japanese Vertical Control Network. We estimated the geometry of the seismogenic fault of the Tohoku Earthquake, as well as a slip model for the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, based on crustal deformation data. Postseismic crustal deformation was also observed by GEONET. Even though the area that coseismicaly subsided is undergoing partial uplift from postseismic deformation, such uplift is not rapid enough to make up for the coseismic subsidence within the next several years. The earthquake caused liquefaction in large parts of the Kanto Region, especially on the Tokyo Bay side and at the lower reaches of the Tone River. Liquefaction was concentrated in areas of land reclamation and former river channels, where it is easy to recognize using time-series geospatial information such as olden topographic maps and olden aerial photographs. To determine the amount of land subsidence (cm) due to liquefaction in Urayasu City, the GSI carried out a leveling survey and compared the differences between pre- and post-earthquake LIDAR survey data with the relative subsidence obtained by leveling.