International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University Uehiro Disaster Risk Reduction Research Division

Outline

Various slip phenomena, including earthquakes and slow slips, occur on faults beneath the ground where we live. I aim to reveal physical mechanisms governing fault slip behavior through studies of crustal deformation due to these fault slips using satellite data, including global positioning system (GPS) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

Detection of Small Slow Slips

Slow slips are a fault slip phenomenon without radiating seismic waves and are attracting attention in relation to earthquakes. Generally, surface displacements due to slow slips are small (several millimeters). Thus, detecting slow slips using GPS data is often difficult. I developed a method for detecting small slow slips and estimating their characteristic parameters. We also applied the developed method to southwest Japan, southcentral Alaska, and northeast Japan. We identified hundreds of slow slips and clarified the physical features of the regions where slow slips occur.

Recent Studies

Recently, I’ve been developing noise mitigation methods for GPS and SAR data based on statistical techniques, such as local regression and deep learning, which is a kind of Artificial Intelligence.