Nankai megathrust

The Nankai Trough 南海トラフ (Nankai Torafu, Southern Sea Trough) is a submarine trough located south of the Nankaidō region of Japan's island of Honshū, extending approximately 900 km offshore. The underlying fault, the Nankai megathrust, is the source of the devastating Nankai megathrust earthquakes, while the trough itself is potentially a major source of hydrocarbon fuel, in the form of methane clathrate.

In plate tectonics, the Nankai Trough marks a subduction zone that is caused by subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate beneath Japan, part of the Eurasian plate (Kanda et al., 2004). This plate boundary would be an oceanic trench except for a high flux of sediments that fills the trench. Within the Nankai Trough there is a large amount of deformed trench sediments (Ike, 2004), making one of Earth's best examples of accretionary prism. Furthermore, seismic reflection studies have revealed the presence of basement highs that are interpreted as seamounts that are covered in sediments (Ike, 2004). The northern part of the trough is known as the Suruga Trough, while to the east is the Sagami Trough. The Nankai trough runs roughly parallel to the Japan Median Tectonic Line.

Conventional geologic estimates of plate movement velocities are difficult in the Nankai Trough because there are no spreading ridges that bound the tectonic plate. This area was not in the original NUVEL models (DeMets et al., 1990). However, a more recent study that included the Philippine Sea plate was based on data from the NUVEL-1A model (Zang et al., 2002). This study estimates that subduction in the Nankai Trough is about 43 mm/yr. REVEL-based calculations indicate that there is no accumulation of strain at the trench. The rates of movement have been calculated to be in a range of 3.0 ± 1.8 mm/yr to 11.1 ± 1.7 mm/yr (Sella et al., 2002). As mentioned previously, the NUVEL-1A plate motion model does not include the Philippine Sea plate. This is because the mathematics of this model only used twelve plates, and the Philippine Sea and Eurasian convergent margin were not included. However, using the Eurasia to North America plate motion, the estimated rate was 2–4 mm/yr (DeMets et al., 1990). This is not in agreement with the REVEL model, seemingly indicating that the NUVEL-1A model may need further revision.

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