Geodetic Analysis inside the South Korean Peninsula and Impact of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki (TO) Earthquake

The most powerful Tohoku-Oki (TO) earthquake that occurred in Japan on 11 March 2011 affected Japan as well as South Korea. In the current study, we investigated contemporary geodetic deformation inside South Korea before and after the TO earthquake using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements from 01 January 2008 to 31 December 2017. Measured velocities of GNSS sites are modeled by Auto-regressive moving average (ARMA) method to analyze the long-term GNSS time-series variation and to investigate the secular tectonic crustal deformation. We found that the maximum co-seismic displacements during the TO earthquake reached up to 36.82 +/- 0.21 mm in the east and 5.90 +/- 0.08 mm in the north directions. The geometric model of the co-seismic thrust surface was characterized by a rectangular plane with a dip of 12.0 degrees and strike 200 degrees. The thrust is situated at 25 km hypocenter depth, with an area roughly similar to 470 km long and similar to 120 km wide. The seismicity pattern after the earthquake indicated that the compressional strain started to be replaced by the extensional strain during the post TO earthquake period from 2011 to 2014. Further, the strain became predominantly extensional during the period 2015 to 2017, revealing an effective rotational change that occurred inside the Korean Peninsula.

Automated summary

This study investigated the impact of the Tohoku-Oki earthquake on South Korea using GNSS measurements. The research found that during the earthquake, there were significant displacements and deformation. After the earthquake, the South Korean Peninsula experienced extensional deformation and an effective rotational change.