Postseismic slip associated with the 2007 Chuetsu-oki, Niigata, Japan, Earthquake (M 6.8 on 16 July 2007) as inferred from GPS data

Postseismic crustal deformation associated with the 2007 Chuetsu-oki Earthquake, which occurred on 16 July 2007 with a magnitude of 6.8 at the southeastern rim of the Sea of Japan, near the coast of Mid-Niigata Prefecture, Central Japan, are detected by GPS observations. We analyzed continuous GPS data from the sites of the Geographical Survey Institute of Japan (GSI) and another dense temporary network, which we established just after the main shock to reveal spatio-temporal evolution of postseismic slip for 50 days after the main shock by geodetic inversion methods. Four models of faults are configured following Ohta et al. (2008, this issue), and these are optimized based on ABIC (Akaike's Bayesian Information Criterion). The results of the inversion analysis show that the postseismic slip on the faults occurred at a downdip and updip extension of the coseismically slipped portion. The slip in the shallower portion decayed to be negligible within 2 weeks, and the slip in the deeper portion was still large after the slip in the shallower portion had almost terminated.