Hydroacoustic Observation on the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Abstract

The MW 9.0 thrust-fault earthquake has occurred in the Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan, on March 11, 2011. We present the detection of the great earthquake and analyze T-waves associated with the main event and two other big aftershocks (MW > 7) recorded in a hydroacoustic array (H11N) in the Pacific Ocean by performing array and spectral analysis to examine characteristics of T-waves generated from the big events. The complex rupture process of the main event directly influences on the shape of the T-waves, and the peak locates on where T-waves excited from fast rupturing process arrive. We compare the two aftershocks with different fault type and show that the fault type and the source depth change shape and spectral contents of T-waves.