Seismic recordings of landslides caused by Typhoon Talas (2011), Japan

Abstract

Large deep-seated landslides occurred in Nara, Wakayama, and Mie prefectures of western Japan when Typhoon Talas passed through the region on September 3–4, 2011. Signals of large landslides have been recorded by seismic networks around the world, and overall force estimates have been previously determined for large landslides using long-period waves. This study focuses on the high-frequency waveforms and presents signals of 18 landslides caused by Typhoon Talas (2011). The location of the landslides can be determined by a seismological back-projection technique and these locations correlate with the observed surface features. We have found that the volumes of the landslide correlated with an energy parameter derived from the seismic records.