National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Appendix G: Magnitudes from C. Richter to Mwp and the W phase
Suggested Citation:"Appendix H: Tsunami Earthquakes." National Research Council. 2011. Tsunami Warning and Preparedness: An Assessment of the U.S. Tsunami Program and the Nation's Preparedness Efforts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12628.
×

APPENDIX H
Tsunami Earthquakes

In 1972, H. Kanamori defined a special class of earthquakes, which he called “tsunami earthquakes,” whose tsunamis are significantly larger than expected from their seismic magnitudes, especially conventional ones. Such events generally feature an exceptionally slow progression of the seismic rupture along the earthquake fault and can be very treacherous because they lack the high frequencies felt by humans in the near-field, which serve as a natural warning for local populations, while hiding in their enhanced low-frequency spectrum the capability to generate disastrous tsunamis. Examples include the catastrophic events in Sanriku (Japan, 1896) and Unimak (Aleutian Islands, 1946). The real-time identification of tsunami earthquakes remains a challenge in modern tsunami warning, especially because these events are relatively rare; only a dozen have been documented in the past 113 years with only five since the advent of modern digital seismometers.

A case study. On September 2, 1992, an earthquake occurred off-shore Nicaragua with magnitudes mb = 5.3 and Ms= 7.2. Note the disparity between the body- and surface-wave magnitudes. The former meant that the earthquake was deprived of the high frequencies typical of ground shaking and felt by humans in the near-field. Indeed, in some coastal communities, the earthquake was not even felt by the population, who thus had no natural warning of the impending disaster. Its higher surface-wave magnitude indicates a “red” source, enriched in lowfrequency energy, as was later confirmed by a Global Centroid-Moment-Tensor (CMT) solution equivalent to Mw = 7.6, measured at periods of 135 s. The earthquake generated a tsunami that ran up to more than 10 m and killed 170 people on the shores of Nicaragua.1 Similar scenarios took place in Sanriku, Japan (1896; 27,000 dead), Java (1994, 2006), and Peru (1996); other tsunami earthquakes have been described in the Kuril Arc (1963, 1975), the Aleutians (1946), and Tonga (1982).2

A major challenge regarding tsunami earthquakes is to identify them in real time from their seismic records. Once an estimate of the seismic moment is obtained, the earthquake is analyzed for possible extended source duration by computing an estimate of the highfrequency energy carried in its P-waves. The result allows a comparison between the behavior of the source in the bass and treble parts of its spectrum, and if an anomaly is detected, identifies the earthquake as a violator of scaling laws, that is, as a tsunami earthquake, whose tsunami potential is greater than would be expected by its initial seismic waves. This algorithm, which uses the concept of the slowness parameter Θ3 has been implemented at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC).4 It was used to successfully identify in real time the slowness of the Java earthquake of July 17, 2006.

Another, more general challenge is to understand the origin of the anomalous rupture in tsunami earthquakes and in particular in what geological environments they can occur. At least two different (and somewhat contradictory) scenarios have been proposed, involving the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix H: Tsunami Earthquakes." National Research Council. 2011. Tsunami Warning and Preparedness: An Assessment of the U.S. Tsunami Program and the Nation's Preparedness Efforts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12628.
×

activation of splay faults rupturing in sedimentary prisms (Sanriku, Japan; Kurils),5 or rupture propagating in a jagged mode along poorly coupled interfaces in sediment-starved environments (Nicaragua, Peru).6 In turn, this raises the questions whether any subduction zone can be the site of a tsunami earthquake, and conversely whether the documented occurrence of such events (most often comparatively small in the magnitude 7.5 range) precludes the occurrence of mega-earthquakes as would be suggested by the available historical record in Nicaragua or Java. Despite active research efforts in this domain, we presently have no firm answers in this respect.

REFERENCES

1. Abe, K., K. Abe, Y. Tsuji, F. Imamura, H. Katao, I. Yohihisa, K. Satake, J. Bourgeois, E. Noguera, and F. Estrada. 1993. Field survey of the Nicaragua earthquake and tsunami of September 2, 1992. Bulletin of the Earthquake Research Institute University of Tokyo 68(1):23-70.

2. Polet, J. and H. Kanamori. 2000. Shallow subduction zone earthquakes and their tsunamigenic potential. Geophysical Journal International 142(3):684-702.

3. Newman, A.V. and E.A. Okal. 1998. Teleseismic estimates of radiated seismic energy: The E/M0 discriminant for tsunami earthquakes. Journal of Geophysical Research 103(B11):26885-26898.

4. Weinstein, S.A. and E.A. Okal. 2005. The mantle wave magnitude Mm and the slowness parameter THETA: Five years of real-time use in the context of tsunami warning. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 95(3):779-799.

5. Tanioka, Y., L.J. Ruff, and K. Satake. 1997. What controls the lateral variation of large earthquake occurrence along the Japan trench?Island Arc 6(3):261-266.

6. Fukao, Y. 1979. Tsunami earthquakes and subduction processes near deep-sea trenches. Journal of Geophysical Research 84(B5):2303-2314.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix H: Tsunami Earthquakes." National Research Council. 2011. Tsunami Warning and Preparedness: An Assessment of the U.S. Tsunami Program and the Nation's Preparedness Efforts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12628.
×
Page 257
Suggested Citation:"Appendix H: Tsunami Earthquakes." National Research Council. 2011. Tsunami Warning and Preparedness: An Assessment of the U.S. Tsunami Program and the Nation's Preparedness Efforts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12628.
×
Page 258
Next: Appendix I: Samoa Tsunami »
Tsunami Warning and Preparedness: An Assessment of the U.S. Tsunami Program and the Nation's Preparedness Efforts Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $65.00 Buy Ebook | $54.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

Many coastal areas of the United States are at risk for tsunamis. After the catastrophic 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, legislation was passed to expand U.S. tsunami warning capabilities. Since then, the nation has made progress in several related areas on both the federal and state levels. At the federal level, NOAA has improved the ability to detect and forecast tsunamis by expanding the sensor network. Other federal and state activities to increase tsunami safety include: improvements to tsunami hazard and evacuation maps for many coastal communities; vulnerability assessments of some coastal populations in several states; and new efforts to increase public awareness of the hazard and how to respond.

Tsunami Warning and Preparedness explores the advances made in tsunami detection and preparedness, and identifies the challenges that still remain. The book describes areas of research and development that would improve tsunami education, preparation, and detection, especially with tsunamis that arrive less than an hour after the triggering event. It asserts that seamless coordination between the two Tsunami Warning Centers and clear communications to local officials and the public could create a timely and effective response to coastal communities facing a pending tsuanami.

According to Tsunami Warning and Preparedness, minimizing future losses to the nation from tsunamis requires persistent progress across the broad spectrum of efforts including: risk assessment, public education, government coordination, detection and forecasting, and warning-center operations. The book also suggests designing effective interagency exercises, using professional emergency-management standards to prepare communities, and prioritizing funding based on tsunami risk.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!