2011 quake sparked new study, rethink of seismic theory
November 20, 2012
By SHIGEKO SEGAWA/ Staff Writer
The devastating earthquake of March 2011 has left its mark on science, shaking up widely accepted seismic theory and forcing forecasters to reassess the chance of major quakes from a soft seabed fault line.
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Furthermore, the two plates slipped 50 meters, the largest measurement on record.
"I had never before seen a geological fault line slipping as much as 50 meters," said James Mori, a professor of seismology at Kyoto University's Disaster Prevention Research Institute.
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Even the significantly larger magnitude-9.5 Chilean earthquake of 1960 is believed to have involved only about 20 meters of fault slippage. The 50-meter movement off Japan deformed the crust and lifted the seabed, spawning a tsunami.
The quake is now known in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake....
