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• January 17, 2017

Together with geodetic and seismic inversions of subsurface fault slip for the 2016 Mw = 7.0 16 April 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, Toda et al. (2016) present a schematic structural model where oblique motion occurred on a northwest-dipping subsurface fault and the slip is partitioned at the surface into strike-slip and normal fault scarps. Their simple dislocation model demonstrates that this bifurcation into pure strike-slip and normal faults likely occurs for optimally oriented failure near the surface. The Kumamoto case, with detailed geological observations and geophysical models, would be the second significant slip-partitioned earthquake around the globe. It provides an important insight into scale- and depth-dependent stress heterogeneity and an implication to a proper estimate of seismic hazard in complex and broad multiple fault strands.