Coseismic and postseismic slip of the 2011 magnitude-9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake.

Most large earthquakes occur along an oceanic trench, where an oceanic plate subducts beneath a continental plate. Massive earthquakes with a moment magnitude, M(w), of nine have been known to occur in only a few areas, including Chile, Alaska, Kamchatka and Sumatra. No historical records exist of a M(w) = 9 earthquake along the Japan trench, where the Pacific plate subducts beneath the Okhotsk plate, with the possible exception of the ad 869 Jogan earthquake, the magnitude of which has not been well constrained.

Detection and monitoring of ongoing aseismic slip in the Tokai region, central Japan.

Analysis of global positioning system data shows that the rate of crustal deformations in the Tokai region of Japan, a seismic gap area, changed over the past 18 months. Kalman filtering analysis shows aseismic slip on the plate boundary in the western Tokai region centered on Lake Hamana, adjacent to the anticipated Tokai earthquake source area. The cumulative moment magnitude reaches 6.