**Acknowledgements**

The invitation of the editor, Dr. Y. Itoh, to submit this manuscript is highly appreciated. The early version of the manuscript is greatly improved by constructive comments by reviewers (Y. Itoh and O. Takano). The following people are thanked for discussion and helpful sugges‐ tion: K. Arita, K. Sawada, S. Furota, T. Nakajima, T. Watanabe, S. Ohtsu, and M. Kawamura.

## **Author details**

Gentaro Kawakami\*

Address all correspondence to: kawakami-gentaro@hro.or.jp

Geological Survey of Hokkaido, Hokkaido Research Organization, Japan

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differences in the degree of tectonic disturbance caused variations in stratigraphic/sedimen‐ tary architecture between the separately developed depressions in the foreland basin area. Limited tectonic activity resulted in trapping of coarse-grained deposits in the inner foredeep setting. Thick muddy deposits filled the sediment-starved and abandoned axial foredeep. Moderate to high thrust activity formed turbiditic successions several thousand meters thick in the axial foredeep. Progressed thrusting caused an increase in coarsergrained sediment-input to the foredeep and the sedimentary style changed from the basinal turbidites by efficient-flows to the slope-apron turbidites by poorly-efficient flows. The longterm shallowing of the foreland basin area can be explained by lithospheric flexural rebound caused by the isostatic readjustment for a thinning orogen and/or decreased horizontal compressional stress due to a gradual or stepwise decline of thrust activities in central

148 Mechanism of Sedimentary Basin Formation - Multidisciplinary Approach on Active Plate Margins

The invitation of the editor, Dr. Y. Itoh, to submit this manuscript is highly appreciated. The early version of the manuscript is greatly improved by constructive comments by reviewers (Y. Itoh and O. Takano). The following people are thanked for discussion and helpful sugges‐ tion: K. Arita, K. Sawada, S. Furota, T. Nakajima, T. Watanabe, S. Ohtsu, and M. Kawamura.

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Gentaro Kawakami\*

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**Chapter 7**

**Late Cenozoic Tectonic Events and Intra-Arc Basin**

On 11 March 2011, a catastrophic earthquake (Mw 9.0) took place along the Japan Trench off the Pacific coast of northeast Japan and about 20 thousands people were lost mainly by Tsunamis. The 2011 great earthquake occurred along a subduction zone where the Pacific Plate subducts perpendicularly toward the North American Plate at a rate of 8~9 cm/year (Figure. 1). Coseismic slip caused by the 2011 earthquake exceeded 50 m around the epicenter [1]. There has been a discrepancy between short-term (geodetic) and long-term (geologic) strain rates in both horizontal and vertical directions over the northeast Japan arc [2-3]. Geodetic observations [1, 3] have revealed horizontal shortening rate at around several tens mm/yr across northeast Japan arc, which is almost half of the subduction rate, whereas geological observations [4] have revealed horizontal shortening rate at around 3~5 mm/yr, which is one order of magnitude slower than geodetic observations [3]. Only a fraction (~10%) of plate convergence is, therefore, accommodated within the northeast Japan arc as long-term deformation. The 2011 great earthquake was one of the decoupling events that effectively released the accumulated elastic strain due to a plate coupling[3]. Study on long-term (geologic) deformation within the northeast Japan arc was thus proved to be crucial for assessing such extraordinary large decoupling events because they are too rare events (~one per kyr) to be detected by short-term

The Japanese Islands are divided into northeast and southwest Japan by an inter-arc rift system called "Fossa Magna" bounded by the Itoigawa-Shizuoka tectonic line (ISTL; Figure. 1) and the Tonegawa tectonic line (TTL; Figure. 1) that divides northeast Japan from southwest Japan [5]. This chapter focuses on the Northeast Honshu where three lines of ranges, the Kitakami and Abukuma mountains, the Ou backbone Range, and the Dewa Hills from east to west, run parallel to the Japan Trench (Figure. 1). This chapter aims to clarify Late Cenozoic tectonic

> © 2013 Nakajima; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

© 2013 Nakajima; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Development in Northeast Japan**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Takeshi Nakajima

**1. Introduction**

(geodetic) observations.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/56706

