Modeling the 27 February 2010 Chilean Tsunami Using Sources Inferred from Different Data

An earthquake of magnitude 8.8 occurred on 27 February 2010 at 06:34:14 UTC with an epicenter located at 35.909°S, 72.733°W, offshore of Maule, Chile and was ranked as the sixth largest in the world since 1900. The earthquake generated a basin wide tsunami but was non-destructive in the far-field compared with the 1960 Chile tsunami. The event generated a wealth of data including measurements by seismic, GPS and water level instruments. These different data sets were used to infer earthquake and tsunami source. Both GPS and seismic data analysis produced models of co-seismic bottom deformation that can be used for tsunami simulation. We used these two different model sources to compare with tsunami real-time forecast analysis to assess the differences between these sources in terms of tsunami generation and to analyze the potential of these different analyses for tsunami forecast. We compared the modeled tsunami data from three different model sources with the recorded tsunami data. Comparison of results is expected to indicate, in particular, whether the fine structure of the earthquake source that generated the initial tsunami source would have significant influence on modeled tsunami waves.