Japan's 2011 Quake Waves Bounced Off Earth's Core, Moving Land
Researchers say a wave that bounced off Earth’s core triggered fault slip and shifted the country a few millimeters east.
- New research published in Science on June 18 reveals that seismic waves from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake reflected off Earth's core, causing Japan to shift eastward by up to 6 millimeters.
- The ScS wave—a shear wave reflecting off the core-mantle boundary—traveled 5,800 kilometers through Earth's mantle, retaining enough energy to reactivate tectonic plate boundaries and trigger the sudden ground lurch.
- University of Chicago assistant professor Sunyoung Park identified the shift in GEONET GPS records, noting a 5-6 millimeter displacement occurred 15 minutes after the magnitude 9.0 mainshock.
- This marks the first documented instance of core-reflected waves triggering fault slip; Caltech seismologist Zachary Ross stated, "That implies that there's some amount of fault slip."
- Park says this discovery represents a "new type of seismic hazard" that researchers must consider for earthquake preparedness, as similar delayed fault motion could trigger events elsewhere worldwide.
22 Articles
22 Articles
Hidden 2011 Japan Earthquake Wave Threatens to Wake Up Sleeping Fault Lines and Spark Unexpected Disasters
Fifteen years after the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake tore through Japan's northeastern coast, scientists say they have uncovered a hidden seismic event buried in the disaster's immediate aftermath, one that exposes a hazard nobody had previously identified. According to a new study published in the journal Science, the whole of Japan shifted around five or six millimetres eastward in the minutes after the quake, nudged not by a convention…
Fifteen years after the devastating Tohoku quake, researchers discover an unknown phenomenon. The shock was so great that it reached the core of the earth.
Powerful seismic waves from Japan's 2011 earthquake struck Earth's core and bounced back up, moving the island eastward
In 2011, Japan reeled from the effects of a devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake. But unnoticed in the chaos resulting from the quake, its major aftershocks and the tsunami it caused, something strange happened. About 16 minutes after the earthquake, but before the aftershocks hit, Japan's GPS stations registered an eastward lurch—across the entire country—but unconnected to any specific quake or aftershock.
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