Possibility of temporal variations in earth tidal strain amplitudes associated with major earthquakes,

Abstract

Earth tidal strains observed concurrently at two stations in the western Chubu region have been analyzed to see if there are any temporal variations of their amplitude in relation to major earthquakes in the region. The tidal strain records obtained at Kamitakara during 7 years and at Inuyama during 2 years are bandpass-filtered, and correlated with the corresponding theoretical tidal function predicted for a solid earth, using least squares mainly in the time domain, to estimate the tidal admittance over the periods. The admittances determined for the two-component Kamitakara strains appear to show a consistent and gradual increase during 10-11 months prior to the central Gifu earthquake of 1969 (M=6.6), with a maximum variation reaching about 15%, and after the earthquake they seem to decrease and recover their normal value a half year later. No such significant variations as in this period can be found over the entire period. The resolved amplitudes of the semidiurnal M2 and diurnal O1 waves show similar trends. The results from the Inuyama observations involve somewhat larger fluctuations, but appear to reach a peak 3-4 months before the earthquake and then decrease to the time of its occurrence. Secular strains and tilts observed at the above two stations also indicate appreciable changes during the corresponding periods. If these temporal variations of the tidal strain amplitudes are not spurious but real phenomena, they might be interpreted as a manifestation of some precursory changes in crustal rigidity around the seismic source region.