Azimuthal differences and changes in strain rate and stress of the Japanese Islands deduced from geophysical data

Abstract Geodetic and seismological observations have shown discrepancies between azimuths of maximum contraction of strain rates and maximum compression of stress. These discrepancies can be the results of the superposition of localized or transient mechanical processes such as fault coupling during seismic cycles. Rich sets of recent geophysical data allow us to conduct spatiotemporal imaging of the discrepancies. Here, we estimate the spatiotemporal evolution in the strain-rate fields of the Japanese Islands with optimized smoothing distances from 1997 to 2021 using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data, and investigate how the maximum contraction axes of horizontal strain rates differ from those of horizontal stress based on earthquake focal mechanisms. Several characteristic results are observed for each region within the Japanese Islands. Both azimuths of the strain rates and stress differ by more than 60 degrees over hundreds of kilometers from the Kanto region to along the Nankai Trough, related to seismotectonics due to the dual subduction of the Philippine Sea plate and the Pacific plate beneath the Japanese Islands. The azimuthal differences tend to be small along tectonic zones with active inland earthquakes and high strain rates on the back-arc sides. We also find that the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake caused notable azimuthal differences in the strain rates and the stress in the Tohoku region. Our dataset has wide spatiotemporal coverage and can serve as a basis for further research, for example, to estimate the current fault conditions during seismic cycles.