Multiple major faults at the Japan Trench: Chemostratigraphy of the plate boundary at IODP Exp. 343: JFAST

• Trace elements define a stratigraphy of the accretionary wedge at the Japan Trench.
• Age gaps and inversions in the stratigraphy imply several large-displacement faults.
• Plate boundary faults extend over a thickness of 15 m.

We determine the trace element stratigraphy of Site C0019, drilled during the Japan Fast Trench Drilling Project (JFAST) International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 343, to illuminate the structure of the plate boundary following the Tohoku-Oki earthquake of 2011. The stratigraphic units at the JFAST site are compared to undeformed Western Pacific sediments from two reference sites (Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1149 and Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 436). The trace element fingerprints in these reference sedimentary units can be correlated to individual JFAST samples. At the JFAST site, we find that the accretionary wedge and downgoing plate sediments in the core are composed primarily of Holocene to Eocene sediments. There are several age reversals and gaps within the sequence, consistent with multiple faults in the bottom 15 m of the JFAST core. Our results point to several candidate faults that could have slipped during the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, in addition to the pelagic clay layer that has been proposed as the main décollement fault.