能登半島の活断層

抄録

The Noto Peninsula, which projects northeastwards from central Japan is the largest peninsula in the area along the Sea of Japan. This peninsula mostly consists of low relief erosion surfaces and marine terraces truncating the Neogene rocks. Many active faults which displace these geomorphic surfaces as well as alluvial fans are observed as shown in Fig. 1. Figures 2 to 12 represent the detailed topographies and profiles near and across the active faults. All the active faults are expressed as clear fault scarps or scarplets, and most of them are reverse faults with upwarping of the terrace surfaces on the upthrown side.
Active faults in this peninsula are classified into three types according to their bearing on geomorphic development. Type I is the first order active fault which resulted in the differentiation of mountain blocks as indicated in Fig. 1. Bijosan I, II and Sekidosan Faults belong to this type. Ochi Depression delineated by these faults at both margins is a kind of ramp valley in a restricted sense rather than graben, as shown in Fig. 13. Fault scarplets at younger uplifted fans (L₁) indicate the faulting has still continued until recently. Type II is the second order fault, represented by large scale height difference of marine terraces, and caused subdivision of each mountain block. Togigawa and Sakami Faults belong to this type. All the other active faults except those mentioned above belong to type III, which has resulted in local deformation of marine terrace surfaces. Faults of this type are usually less than 2km in length and less than 20m in vertical displacement. It is especially interesting that the seaward portion of terrace surfaces generally upthrust against their inland parts. Therefore, active faults of type III can be easily recognized by such an abnormal inland-facing scarplet on terrace surface.
Active faults in this area are listed in Table 3. It is noticed that the rate of faulting is always more than 10cm/1, 000 years in types I and II, while it is usually less than that in type III. The amount of vertical displacement even in type III is, however, thought too large to be caused by a single earthquake, so that repeated faultings must be considered.
Direction of principal axis of maximum compressive stress is N40-60°W, which is inferred from the frequency distribution of trend of active reverse faults shown in Fig. 14. Fault mechanism of a destructive earthquake of 1933 shows also a maximum pressure direction of approximately E-W, probably with a reverse faulting. The direction above mentioned is almost the same as that in the inland areas of central Japan. It is noteworthy, however, that there is a clear difference in fault type between the Noto Peninsula and the other areas of central Japan where strike-slip active faults predominate.