Historical Tsunami Database for the Kuril-Kamchatka Region

Abstract

The Historical Tsunami Database for the Kuril-Kamchatka region has been developed at the Tsunami Laboratory of Novosibirsk Computing Center as a part of the “Integrated Tsunami Research and Information System” Project. This database covers the region within 41° to 64° N and 130° to 168° E and consists of two main parts: the earthquake database and the tsunami database, embedded inside a graphic shell that has been especially developed to provide the ability for fast search, retrieval and mapping data. The earthquake database contains the source data of almost 8000 events occurring within the region from 1737 to 1990. Source information includes date, time, epicentral coordinates, depth, magnitude, and seismic intensity followed by indexing to data sources. The tsunami database covers the same period and contains 124 events, with 109 of them having regional and 15 distant sources. The tsunami data set consists of four main blocks: detailed source data, coastal observations of tsunami wave heights, original descriptions of tsunamis and bibliography. As supporting software for data compilation and storage, DBASE-IV plus was used. For data retrieval and visualization, a special graphic shell has been developed which can be run on any IBM-compatible PC under MS-DOS. It is based on a menu-driven system with on-screen buttons for process management and on-screen windows for data input and output. The specially developed background mapping software provides the ability to display the observational data on an actual geographical basis.