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Earthquake, Geology, and Tsunami

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Preliminary Reconnaissance Report of the 2011 Tohoku-Chiho Taiheiyo-Oki Earthquake

Part of the book series: Geotechnical, Geological and Earthquake Engineering ((GGEE,volume 23))

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Abstract

On March 11, 2011, a huge subduction zone earthquake occurred offshore of the Tohoku district, Japan, and created devastating damage, primarily due to the very high tsunami tide along the Pacific Coast. We first review several source studies and then summarize basic characteristics of observed strong motions with reference to the attenuation relationships, response spectra, linear site factors in the region, and nonlinearity. Fortunately we haven’t seen heavy damage concentration even in the areas with high Peak Ground Accelerations, because Peak Ground Velocities were not high enough to make buildings heavily damaged or collapsed. The locally deployed network data as well as observed building responses are briefly summarized. Topographic maps and geological maps of Tohoku district and Kanto district will be shown. Finally, statistics of inundation survey, water level time ­histories, and examples of damage for tsunami in Tohoku district will be presented.

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Acknowledgement

Microtremor observations at MYG004 were performed by the joint investigation team of DPRI (H. Kawase, S. Matsushima, Baoyintu, F. Nagashima, K. Nakano) and Shimizu Corp. (T. Satoh, T. Hayakawa, M. Ohshima). Data from K-NET and KiK-net distributed promptly by NIED are highly appreciated. Thanks are also given to Profs. K. Irikura, H. Kawabe, and K. Asano for their kind and prompt supply of their unpublished materials and to all the institutions who provided us their nice scientific findings on the web.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Hiroshi Kawase, Shinchi Matsushima &  Baoyintu

  2. Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

    Masato Motosaka, Susumu Ohno & Hitoshi Tanaka

  3. Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

    Hidekazu Watanabe

  4. Tohoku Institute of Technology, Sendai, Japan

    Reiji Tanaka & Ryota Yamaya

  5. Akita Prefectural University, Akita, Japan

    Junji Ogawa

  6. Sendai Technical High School, Sendai, Japan

    Yukihiro Take

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  1. Hiroshi Kawase
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  2. Shinchi Matsushima
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  3. Baoyintu
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  4. Masato Motosaka
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Correspondence to Hiroshi Kawase .

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    Kawase, H. et al. (2012). Earthquake, Geology, and Tsunami. In: Preliminary Reconnaissance Report of the 2011 Tohoku-Chiho Taiheiyo-Oki Earthquake. Geotechnical, Geological and Earthquake Engineering, vol 23. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54097-7_2

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54097-7_2

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