Aftershocks following the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake driven by both stress transfer and afterslip

Aftershocks are a fundamental characteristic of seismicity, and their generation mechanism is mainly characterized by two physical models, stress transfer from large earthquakes and afterslip-induced stress loading. However, the contribution of each mechanism to aftershock generation remains unclear. Here we investigate the spatiotemporal variations in aftershock activity following the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake by applying the Hierarchical Space–Time Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence (HIST-ETAS) model to the decade of recorded seismicity since the mainshock. Using the estimated HIST-ETAS model, we categorize the aftershocks into background earthquakes (which are caused by aseismic phenomena) and triggered earthquakes (which are caused by earthquake-to-earthquake interactions). Most of the earthquakes that occurred updip of the large coseismic slip zone along the Japan Trench are triggered earthquakes, consistent with the lack of afterslip in this area. Conversely, background earthquakes are the predominant earthquake type in the long-term downdip of the large coseismic slip zone, and they positively correlate with the afterslip evolution. Our results suggest the importance of combining these two end-member aftershock generation models to explain aftershock activity and thus provide new insights into the relationship between afterslip and spatiotemporal aftershock distribution. Our classifications may also contribute to the monitoring of afterslip in a given region that hosts a large earthquake, particularly where geodetic observation networks are too sparse to evaluate afterslip evolution.