The Futagawa fault, extending southwest from Aso caldera, is one of the major dextral strike-slip active faults in Kyushu, southwest Japan. On 16 April 2016, the Kumamoto earthquake (Mj 7.3) occurred, and ~31-km-long right-lateral surface ruptures appeared along the Futagawa fault. After the 2016 earthquake, several trenching surveys were conducted across surface ruptures to reveal the faulting history. However, no trenching survey has been carried out in the 15-km-long middle section from Dozon to Aso caldera. We conducted a trenching survey and an additional hand auger survey to reveal faulting history in Komori, Nishihara Village, in the middle of the section. Furthermore, we carried out a geomorphological survey for the detailed description of the surface ruptures around the trench site.
At the trench site, a ~40-cm-deep graben was formed by the 2016 earthquake. A similar graben structure appeared on the trench wall units, which shows larger vertical deformation than that of the 2016 earthquake, indicating that similar types of deformation to the 2016 earthquake have repeatedly occurred at this site. Based on such deformational features of units, we identified at least four faulting events, including the 2016 earthquake, since about 11,500 cal BP. Also, the timing of the penultimate event was 2,240-1,910 cal BP and the calculated recurrence interval was 2,400-3,800 years. The penultimate event may have been simultaneous in the section from the northeastern part of the Aso caldera to the southwestern part of the fault zone, similar to the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake. If this idea is correct, based on the overlap among event dates from previous studies as well as our result, the timing of the preceding earthquake is about 2,000 cal BP.
