Transient analyses of hydraulic head in the fault slip experiments in fracture zones of Shionohira and Kuruma Faults

Wakahama, Hiroshi*; Nojo, Haruka*; Aoki, Kazuhiro ; Imai, Hirotaro; Guglielmi, Y.*; Cook, P.*; Soom, F.*

Upon the Hamadori earthquake (Mw 6.7) of 11 April 2011, coseismic surface deformation of 14 km running NNW to SSE in southeast Fukushima Prefecture occurred and was newly named the Shionohira Fault. However, no surface deformation was observed along the Kuruma Fault which is a southern extension of the Shionohira Fault. Fault injection tests using SIMFIP method at the Shionohira site on the former active segment and the Minakamikita site on the latter inactive segment were conducted to evaluate the activity of the two faults. Based on hydraulic responses to water injection into the fault rupture zone in the monitoring boreholes at the two sites, hydraulic properties of the area across the fault zone were estimated using the GRF model (Barker, 1988). The results obtained on hydraulic conductivity, specific storage and flow dimension were consistent with those in the domestic and international literature. The hydraulic conductivity and specific storage were larger in Shionohira than in Minakamikita. The flow dimension of Shionohira was three-dimensional, while that of Minakamikita was found to be a two-dimensional fractional flow. In addition, it is understood that the volumetric expansion occurs in the former site in the triaxial direction and the latter in the uniaxial with the comparison between the uniaxial expansion coefficient calculated from the results of SIMFIP displacement measurements and the specific storage in the hydraulic analysis. The difference in the hydraulic parameters between the two sites corresponded to the difference in the spatial development of fractures considered to be the "water passway," indicating the possibility of a correlation between the parameters and the different possible causes for fault activity at the two sites.