Co-seismic faulting activity during the last three hundred thousands years of the Ichinose fault group, in the southern part of the 150km long Itoigawa-Shizuoka Tectonic Line active fault system, central Japan, was appraised. The Ichinose fault group consists of the mainly two distinct arcuate reverse fault traces bulged toward the east (frontal) and west (behind) directions. We conducted a trench excavation at the Nakano site across the behind fault, where the detailed geological and chronological information for the last ten thousands years was absent. The excavation resulted in evidences for the latest, at least two surface-rupturing events. The events were present sometimes between 665 and 1275 cal.y.B.P. and between 3355 and 4810 cal.y.B.P. The timing of the penultimate event is coincident with the previously estimated latest event on the frontal fault (3, 990-6, 270 cal.y.B.P.). The recurrence time and slip rate between these two events is approximately estimated as 3, 200 years and 0.9-1.8mm/yr in dip-slip, respectively. In comparison with a slip rate estimated from the geomorphological characteristics, the dip-slip rate from our excavation result is coincident well.
A reappraisal of geomorphological reference deposits and a result of the seismic investigation study suggest that the total deformation rate of the Ichinose fault group is 3.5-3.7mm/yr (possibly up to 5.0mm/yr) and it becomes to increase in recent several ten thousands years. While the deformation rate suggests that the co-seismic faulting activity at the Ichinose fault group as a whole is ranked as the one of most active faults in Japan, however, it is smaller than that of 6.3-8.3mm/yr estimated previously from the gravimetric and numerical analyses.
