Sensitivity of tsunami data to the updip extent of the July 2021 Mw 8.2 Alaska earthquake

A large tsunamigenic earthquake of magnitude Mw 8.2 occurred on the Alaska‐Aleutian subduction zone in July 2021. To reveal the characteristics of the event, we first applied spectral and wavelet analyses to the induced tsunami recorded both at the local and Pacific‐wide sea level observation networks. Because the earthquake was relatively deep (∼30 km), the resultant maximum tsunami amplitudes were only ∼5 and ∼50 cm in the open ocean and coastal area respectively. However, owing to the unique geological feature of the region, the tsunami had dominant periods of 57–73 min, which are longer than that typically generated by similar‐size megathrust earthquakes. Furthermore, we compared multiple source models inferred from various data sets and evaluated their performances in reconstructing the observed tsunami waveforms. The comparison results suggest that the up‐dip limit of the rupture area must be restricted at depth of ∼20 km to accurately reproduce the observed tsunami waveforms. Shallower slips beyond the prescribed limit led to an overestimation of the tsunami amplitude. This implies that the earthquake was unlikely to rupture the plate interface on the near trench section

Comparison of Earthquake Source Models for the 2011 Tohoku Event Using Tsunami Simulations and Near‐Field Observations

Selection of the earthquake source used in tsunami models of the 2011 Tohoku event affects the simulated tsunami waveform across the near field. Different earthquake sources, based on inversions of seismic waveforms, tsunami waveforms, and Global Positioning System (GPS) data, give distinguishable patterns of simulated tsunami heights in many locations in Tohoku and at near‐field Deep‐ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoys. We compared 10 sources proposed by different research groups using the GeoClaw code to simulate the resulting tsunami. Several simulations accurately reproduced observations at simulation sites with high grid resolution. Many earthquake sources produced results within 20% difference from the observations between 38° and 39° N, including realistic inundation on the Sendai plain, reflecting a common reliance on large initial seafloor uplift around 38° N (±0.5°), 143.25° E (±0.75°). As might be expected, DART data was better reproduced by sources created by inversion techniques that incorporated DART data in the inversion. Most of the earthquake sources tested at sites with high grid resolution were unable to reproduce the magnitude of runup north of 39° N, indicating that an additional source of tsunamigenic energy, not present in most source models, is needed to explain these observations

A 1000-yr-old tsunami in the Indian Ocean points to greater risk for East Africa

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Maselli, V., Oppo, D., Moore, A. L., Gusman, A. R., Mtelela, C., Iacopini, D., Taviani, M., Mjema, E., Mulaya, E., Che, M., Tomioka, A. L., Mshiu, E., & Ortiz, J. D. A 1000-yr-old tsunami in the Indian Ocean points to greater risk for East Africa. Geology, 48(8), (2020): 808-813, doi:10.1130/G47257.1.The December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami prompted an unprecedented research effort to find ancient precursors and quantify the recurrence time of such a deadly natural disaster. This effort, however, has focused primarily along the northern and eastern Indian Ocean coastlines, in proximal areas hardest hit by the tsunami. No studies have been made to quantify the recurrence of tsunamis along the coastlines of the western Indian Ocean, leading to an underestimation of the tsunami risk in East Africa. Here, we document a 1000-yr-old sand layer hosting archaeological remains of an ancient coastal Swahili settlement in Tanzania. The sedimentary facies, grain-size distribution, and faunal assemblages indicate a tsunami wave as the most likely cause for the deposition of this sand layer. The tsunami in Tanzania is coeval with analogous deposits discovered at eastern Indian Ocean coastal sites. Numerical simulations of tsunami wave propagation indicate a megathrust earthquake generated by a large rupture of the Sumatra-Andaman subduction zone as the likely tsunami source. Our findings provide evidence that teletsunamis represent a serious threat to coastal societies along the western Indian Ocean, with implications for future tsunami hazard and risk assessments in East Africa.This work was funded by the National Geographic Society (grant N. CP-R008–17). Maselli acknowledges support from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund through the Ocean Frontier Institute. We are extremely grateful to the editor, two anonymous reviewers, J. Bourgeois, G. Eberli, A. Prendergast, and C. Gouramanis for all the suggestions provided, which greatly improved the quality of the manuscript. We would like to thank the United Republic of Tanzania and the University of Dar es Salaam for allowing us to perform the field work activity. This is ISMAR Bologna scientific contribution number 2024

A 1000-yr-old tsunami in the Indian Ocean points to greater risk for East Africa: reply

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Maselli, V., Oppo, D., Moore, A. L., Gusman, A. R., Mtelela, C., Iacopini, D., Taviani, M., Mjema, E., Mulaya, E., Che, M., Tomioka, A. L., Mshiu, E., & Ortiz, J. D. A 1000-yr-old tsunami in the Indian Ocean points to greater risk for East Africa: reply. Geology, 49(1), (2021): E516-E516, https://doi.org/10.1130/G48585Y.1.We appreciate Somerville’s (2020) interest in our work, and the opportunity to further expand the discussion about the occurrence of a trans-oceanic tsunami in the Indian Ocean generated by a megathrust earthquake ~1000 years ago. Somerville suggests a connection between the inferred tsunami deposit presented by us (Maselli et al., 2020) and a tsunami event reported to have occurred in Nagapattinam (India) in the year 900 CE and described in Kalaki Krishnamurty’s book (Rastogi and Jaiswal, 2006)

W Phase Inversion and Tsunami Inundation Modeling for Tsunami Early Warning: Case Study for the 2011 Tohoku Event

Centroid moment tensor solutions for the 2011 Tohoku earthquake are determined by W phase inversions using 5 and 10 min data recorded by the Full Range Seismograph Network of Japan (F-net). By a scaling relation of moment magnitude to rupture area and an assumption of rigidity of 4 x 10(10) N m(-2), simple rectangular earthquake fault models are estimated from the solutions. Tsunami inundations in the Sendai Plain, Minamisanriku, Rikuzentakata, and Taro are simulated using the estimated fault models. Then the simulated tsunami inundation area and heights are compared with the observations. Even the simulated tsunami heights and inundations from the W phase solution that used only 5 min data are considerably similar to the observations. The results are improved when using 10 min of W phase data. These show that the W phase solutions are reliable to be used for tsunami inundation modeling. Furthermore, the technique that combines W phase inversion and tsunami inundation modeling can produce results that have sufficient accuracy for tsunami early warning purposes

Near-field tsunami inundation forecast method assimilating ocean bottom pressure data : A synthetic test for the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami

An approach for forecasting near-field tsunami inundation was developed by combining two methods. The first method computes tsunami by assimilating pressure data observed at numerous ocean bottom sensors without tsunami source information, and the second method forecasts near-field tsunami inundation by selecting a site-specific scenario from a precomputed tsunami inundation database. In order to evaluate the validity of this combined method, we performed a synthetic forecast test for the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami along the Pacific coast in Japan. A tsunami computation test performed using the assimilation of synthetic pressure data reveals that the method reproduced well the tsunami field for the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami. A synthetic near-field tsunami inundation forecast at four sites, Kamaishi, Rikuzentakata, Minamisanriku, and the Sendai Plain for the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami also worked. The results indicate that an accurate tsunami inundation forecast method by this combined approach using pressure data from numerous ocean bottom sensors is now available

Determination of Source Models Appropriate for Tsunami Forecasting : Application to Tsunami Earthquakes in Central Sumatra, Indonesia

In the subduction zone off the west coast of central Sumatra, two great earthquakes, the 2007 great Bengkulu earthquake (Mw 8.4) and the 2010 Mentawai tsunami earthquake (Mw 7.8), occurred along the plate interface. Although the moment magnitude of the 2010 earthquake was much smaller than that of the 2007 earthquake, the tsunami heights resulting from the former 2010 earthquake were higher than those resulting from the latter 2007 earthquake, indicating that tsunami heights are difficult to forecast. An advanced method for determining appropriate source models that can explain the tsunami heights along coastal areas is needed for tsunami warning purposes. In this study, fault parameters were estimated from the W-phase inversion, and fault length and width were calculated from suitable scaling relations between those and the magnitude for the 2007 and 2010 earthquakes. Tsunami numerical simulations were conducted using various slip amounts or corresponding rigidities. The best slip amount or corresponding rigidity was selected by comparing the measured and computed tsunami heights. For the 2007 Bengkulu earthquake, the measured tsunami heights are well explained using a rigidity of 3.0 × 1010 Nm−2 (7.59-m slip amount). For the 2010 Mentawai tsunami earthquake, the measured tsunami heights are well explained using a rigidity of 1.5 × 1010 Nm−2 (8.17-m slip amount). From those results, we determined the depth-dependent rigidity relation for Central Sumatra to estimate appropriate source models in our tsunami height forecasting method