Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Spatiotemporal distributions of tsunami sources and discovered periodicities

  • Published:
Izvestiya, Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Both spatial and spatiotemporal distributions of the sources of tsunamigenic earthquakes of tectonic origin over the last 112 years have been analyzed. This analysis has been made using tsunami databases published by the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics (Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (United States), as well as earthquake catalogs published by the National Earthquake Information Center (United States). It has been found that the pronounced activation of seismic processes and an increase in the total energy of tsunamigenic earthquakes were observed at the beginning of both the 20th (1905–1920) and 21st (2004–2011) centuries. Studying the spatiotemporal periodicity of such events on the basis of an analysis of the two-dimensional distributions of the sources of tectonic tsunamis has made it possible to determine localized latitudinal zones with a total lack of such events (90°−75° N, 45°–90° S, and 35°−25° N) and regions with a periodic occurrence of tsunamis mainly within the middle (65°−35° N and 25°–40° S) and subequatorial (15° N–20° S) latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The objective of this work is to analyze the spatiotemporal distributions of sources of tsunamigenic earthquakes and the effect of the periodic occurrence of such events on the basis of data taken from global tsunami catalogs.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. K. Kasahara, Earthquake Mechanics (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1981; Mir, Moscow, 1985).

    Google Scholar 

  2. K. Mogi, “Global variation of seismic activity,” Tectonophysics 57, 43–50 (1979).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. F. Riguzzi, G. Panza, P. Varga, and C. Doglioni, “Can Earth’s rotation and tidal despinning drive plate tectonics?,” Tectonophysics 484(1–4), 60–73 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. B. W. Levin and E. V. Sasorova, Seismicity of the Pacific: Revealing Global Regularities (Yanus-K, Moscow, 2012) [in Russian].

    Google Scholar 

  5. NGDC/NOAA Historical Tsunami Database (2010). http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_db.shtml.

  6. HTDB/WLD, Historical Tsunami Database for the World Ocean (2010). http://tsun.sscc.ru/nh/tsunami.php.

  7. USGS/NEIC. http://neic.usgs.gov.

  8. B. W. Levin and E. V. Sasorova, “General regularities in the distribution of seismic events on the Earth and on the Moon,” Dokl. Earth Sci. 434(1), 1249–1253 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. B. W. Levin, “On the nature of some periodic changes in the Earth’s seismic regime,” Vestn. Dal’nevost. Otd. Ross. Akad. Nauk, No. 1, 51–58 (2006).

    Google Scholar 

  10. B. W. Levin and E. V. Sasorova, “Spatial and temporal periodicity in the Pacific tsunami occurrence,” in Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Workshop on Subduction Processes Emphasizing the Kurile-Kamchatkan-Aleutian Arcs, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, June, 2002 (Geophysical Institute, Fairbanks, 2002), pp. 43–51.

    Google Scholar 

  11. B. W. Levin and E. V. Sasorova, “Tsunami and great earthquake space-time periodicity: comparative analysis,” in Proceedings of the 26th International Tsunami Symposium, ITS2013, Göcek, Turkey; Rhodes, Greece, 25–28 September, 2013, p. 31.

  12. V. K. Gusiakov, “Relationship of tsunami intensity to source earthquake magnitude as retrieved from historical data,” Pure Appl. Geophys. 168(11), 2033–2041 (2011). doi: 10.1007/s00024-011-0286-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. E. V. Sasorova, M. E. Korovin, V. E. Morozov, and P. V. Savochkin, “On the problem of local tsunamis and possibilities of their warning,” Oceanology (Engl. Transl.) 48(5), 634–645 (2008).

    Google Scholar 

  14. A. P. Lisitsyn, “Marine geology—40 years of the conference activities,” in Geology of Seas and Oceans: Proceedings of the 20th International Scientific Conference (School) on Marine Geology, Vol. 1 (GEOS, Moscow, 2013), pp. 5–13 [in Russian].

    Google Scholar 

  15. R. N. Burymskaya, B. W. Levin, and S. L. Solov’ev, “Kinematic criterion of the tsunamigenic potency of underwater earthquakes,” Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 261(6), 1325–1329 (1981).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Nauki 1b, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 693022, Russia

    B. W. Levin

  2. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovskii pr. 36, Moscow, 117991, Russia

    E. V. Sasorova

Authors
  1. B. W. Levin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. E. V. Sasorova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to B. W. Levin.

Additional information

Original Russian Text © B.W. Levin, E.V. Sasorova, 2014, published in Izvestiya AN. Fizika Atmosfery i Okeana, 2014, Vol. 50, No. 5, pp. 552–566.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Levin, B.W., Sasorova, E.V. Spatiotemporal distributions of tsunami sources and discovered periodicities. Izv. Atmos. Ocean. Phys. 50, 485–497 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001433814050065

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001433814050065

Keywords

Search

Navigation