Continuous seismic observations at Iwo-jima, an active volcanic island belonging to the Izu-Ogasawara island arc, have detected remote triggering of microearthquakes in and around the island. The remote triggering at Iwo-jima is a phenomenon of an abrupt increase of microearthquake activity at the time of a passage of seismic waves from a distant large earthquake. We examined seismograms of a total of 21 earthquakes with magnitude larger than 7 and within an epicenter distance of 3000 km from Iwo-jima. Remote triggering phenomena were found at four events during the period from 1980 to 1993 : the 1983 west off Tohoku earthquake, the 1984 southeast off Kyushu earthquake, the 1993 southeast off Hokkaido earthquake, and the 1993 Mariana Island earthquake. The largest epicenter distance among them was 2009 km. The initial times of triggering coincide with the theoretical arrival times of surface waves and successive occurrences of earthquakes continued for 6 to 15 min, suggesting that dynamic stress or strain caused the remote triggering phenomena at Iwo-jima. As a well-developed hydrothermal system is suggested in shallow depths beneath Iwo-jima, volcanic fluids presumably play an important role in remote triggering.
