Detecting of the Moho Discontinuities Using Seismological Surveys: A Case in the Kinki District

By the end of the last century, the rough configuration of the Moho discontinuity beneath the Japan Islands had been revealed based on explosion surveys and natural earthquake observations. Recently, however, some researchers have pointed out that local roughness of the Moho geometry or relative location between continental and oceanic Moho might provide important knowledge about the source regions of large earthquakes.  Within the southern portion of the Kinki district, the Philippine Sea plate subducts beneath the continental plate at the Nankai Trough. We detect P-to-S converted wave energy from the Moho velocity discontinuity beneath the Kinki district with receiver function analysis, and compare the results of other recent investigations of the depth of Moho. Both oceanic and continental Moho discontinuities are detected in not only our receiver function analysis but also active-source seismic exploration survey and travel-time tomography analysis. The inferred depths of the subducting oceanic Moho beneath the Kii Peninsula, the southern Kinki district, and the continental Moho beneath the northern Kinki correspond well with each other. However, beneath the central Kinki district, no significant converted phases are observed corresponding to the Moho depth inferred from the travel-time analyses. We interpret that no sharp velocity discontinuity exists around the Moho in the central Kinki district.