Field investigations and analyses of satellite images and aerial photographs reveal that the 2016 M w 7.1 (Mj 7.3) Kumamoto earthquake produced a ∼40-km surface rupture zone striking NE-SW on central Kyushu Island, Japan. Coseismic surface ruptures were characterized by shear faults, extensional cracks, and mole tracks, which mostly occurred along the pre-existing NE-SW-striking Hinagu–Futagawa fault zone in the southwest and...

Pseudotachylytes are present along the Dahezhen shear zone in the Qinling–Dabie Shan collisional orogenic belt, central China. Two types of pseudotachylyte vein are documented in the shear zone: cataclasite‐related pseudotachylyte (C‐Pt) and mylonite‐related pseudotachylyte (M‐Pt). M‐Pt is associated with mylonite‐development and is overprinted by C‐Pt. All of the quartz and most of the feldspar porphyroclasts within the M‐Pt...

This paper describes the results of petrographical and meso‐ to microstructural observations of brittle fault rocks in cores obtained by drilling through the Nojima Fault at a drilling depth of 389.52 m. The zonation of deformation and alteration in the central zone of the fault is clearly seen in cores of granite from the hanging wall, in the following order: (i) host rock, which is characterized by some intragranular microcr...

Cataclastic rocks found in the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University (DPRI) 500 m drill core and outcrops along the Nojima Fault zone on Awaji Island, southwest Japan, were examined at mesoscopic and microscopic scales. The damaged zone of this fault in granitic rocks, observed on the southeast side of the fault, is 50–60 m wide and is composed of fractured host rocks and cataclastic rocks including cataclas...

Crack‐filling clays and weathered cracks were observed in the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University (DPRI) 1800 m cores drilled from the Nojima Fault Zone, which was activated during the 1995 Hyogo‐ken Nanbu earthquake (Kobe earthquake). The crack‐filling clays consist mainly of unconsolidated fine‐grained materials that fill opening cracks with no shear textures. Most of the cracks observed in the DPRI 1800...

Drilling was carried out to penetrate the Nojima Fault where the surface rupture occurred associated with the 1995 Hyogo‐ken Nanbu earthquake. Two 500 m boreholes were successfully drilled through the fault zone at a depth of 389.4 m. The drilling data show that the relative uplift of the south‐east side of the Nojima Fault (south‐west segment) was approximately 230 m. The Nojima branch fault, which branches from the Nojima Fa...