What does stress mean in earthquakes?

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Maps of the measurement location. (a) The positional relationship between the Kamaishi mine and the epicentre of the Tohoku-oki earthquake (yellow star with a red outline). The epicentre of repeaters off Kamaishi is marked by a red star and the location of the Kamaishi mine is indicated by a black star (modified from ref. 34). The total slip distribution of slip greater than 5 m for the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake is also plotted, from Yagi and Fukuhata16 and the epicentres of earthquakes (M > 5) in the Sanriku-oki low-seismicity region (SLSR), from Ye et al.33. (b) Topographical map of the area around the Kamaishi mine, created by the first author based on a topographic map. (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan; http://mapps.gsi.go.jp/maplibSearch.do#1) (c) Plan view of the drift at the 550 mL site at the Kamaishi mine. The measurement station used in this study and those in other studies with the Compact Conical-ended Borehole Overcoring (CCBO) technique are indicated by stars. In this Fig., K-1 denotes the measurement station used by Sakaguchi et al.10, K-2 the station used by JNC (Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, current Japan Atomic Energy Agency: JAEA)15 and K-3 and K-4 denote those used by Sugawara et al.14. K-5 marks the measurement station used by Sakaguchi et al.11 with the Downward Compact Conical-ended Borehole Overcoring (DCCBO) technique12, 13, which is located in the vicinity of the measurement station in this study. The DCCBO technique is an improved version of the CCBO technique that can be applied to a vertical borehole from the surface. (This figure was generated using Adobe Illustrator software, version number Illustrator CS5 15.1.0) (d) Plan view of the measurement station. The measurement station is located where two galleries (width ~5.5 m, height ~7 m) are adjacent. in situ stress measurements were performed in four boreholes (SKO-1, SKO-2, SKO-3 and SKO-4), which are denoted by thick solid lines and a red broken line. The star in this figure indicates the K-5 measurement borehole used by Sakaguchi et al.11 with the DCCBO technique using a downward borehole from the gallery floor.