Relationship between hypocentral distribution and geological structure in the Horonobe area, northern Hokkaido, Japan

Tokiwa, Tetsuya; Asamori, Koichi; Hiraga, Naoto*; Yamada, Osamu; Moriya, Hirokazu*; Hotta, Hikaru*; Kitamura, Itaru*; Yokota, Hideharu

In this paper, we discuss the relationship between the accurate hypocentral distribution and 3-D geological structure in and around the Horonobe area, Japan. We carried out multiplet-clustering analysis by using data of the 421 micro-earthquakes which occurred from 1st September, 2003 to 30th September, 2007. The 3-D geological structure model was mainly constructed from previous seismic reflection profiles and drilling data. As a result of this analysis, although there are some differences in depth between them, the hypocenters are distributed in NNW-SSE direction and become deeper from the west toward the east. The distributed pattern of the hypocenters is similar to the one of the geological structure. These results indicate that the hypocentral distribution may represent existence of active zone related to the geological structure, and provide effective information which can contribute to establishing methods for estimating the future evolution of the geological environment.