Pronounced Seismic Anisotropy in Kanto Sedimentary Basin: A Case Study of Using Dense Arrays, Ambient Noise Seismology, and Multi-Modal Surface-Wave Imaging

Metropolitan Tokyo is subject to significant seismic hazards because it is located near a triple junction of tectonic plates and because it sits atop the soft and thick sediments of the Kanto sedimentary Basin. Numerical simulations of earthquake ground motions rely on accurate velocity models of the basin elastic and anelastic structure, which remains to be improved. Here, we leverage the density of permanent stations of the Metropolitan Seismic Observation network seismic network to construct a high-resolution radially anisotropic (V_SV ≠ V_SH) shear wave velocity model of the Kanto basin. We construct surface waves using ambient seismic noise cross correlations. In sedimentary structures, it is common for several surface-wave modes to arise and to couple in time, so we use local sub-arrays to extract the phase velocity of the fundamental mode and first overtone of Rayleigh and Love waves at short periods (1–7 s). We find that a strong and negative shear-wave anisotropy (−5%) is confined to the upper 300 m depth range, and a strong and positive anisotropy (+5%) at greater depths. We interpret them as a result of the vertical cracks from repeated earthquake damage and sediment stratigraphy in the Kanto Basin. Because anisotropy models are not routinely used in physics-based ground motion prediction, our study motivates the consideration of seismic anisotropy in sedimentary basins for the ground motion of future earthquakes.