West Coast Tsunami: Cascadia's Fault?
Abstract
The tragedies of 2004 Sumatra and 2011 Japan tsunamis exposed the limits of our knowledge in preparing for devastating tsunamis. The 1,100-km coastline of the Pacific coast of North America has tectonic and geological settings similar to Sumatra and Japan. The geological records unambiguously show that the Cascadia fault had caused devastating tsunamis in the past and this geological process will cause tsunamis in the future. Hypotheses of the rupture process of Cascadia fault include a long rupture (M9.1) along the entire fault line, short ruptures (M8.8 - M9.1) nucleating only a segment of the coastline, or a series of lesser events of M8+. Recent studies also indicate an increasing probability of small rupture occurring at the south end of the Cascadia fault. Some of these hypotheses were implemented in the development of tsunami evacuation maps in Washington and Oregon. However, the developed maps do not reflect the tsunami impact caused by the most recent updates regarding the Cascadia fault rupture process. The most recent study by Wang et al. (2013) suggests a rupture pattern of high- slip patches separated by low-slip areas constrained by estimates of coseismic subsidence based on microfossil analyses. Since this study infers that a Tokohu-type of earthquake could strike in the Cascadia subduction zone, how would such an tsunami affect the tsunami hazard assessment and planning along the Pacific Coast of North America? The rapid development of computing technology allowed us to look into the tsunami impact caused by above hypotheses using high-resolution models with large coverage of Pacific Northwest. With the slab model of MaCrory et al. (2012) (as part of the USGS slab 1.0 model) for the Cascadia earthquake, we tested the above hypotheses to assess the tsunami hazards along the entire U.S. West Coast. The modeled results indicate these hypothetical scenarios may cause runup heights very similar to those observed along Japan's coastline during the 2011 Japan tsunami,. Comparing to a long rupture, the Tohoku-type rupture may cause more serious impact at the adjacent coastline, independent of where it would occur in the Cascadia subduction zone. These findings imply that the Cascadia tsunami hazard may be greater than originally thought.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFMNH52A..01W
- Keywords:
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- 4341 NATURAL HAZARDS Early warning systems;
- 4255 OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL Numerical modeling