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Field Survey Following the 28 October 2012 Haida Gwaii Tsunami

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Abstract

This article documents the near-field effects of the largest tsunami of 2012 (globally), which occurred following Canada’s second-largest recorded earthquake, on a thrust fault offshore western Haida Gwaii on October 28 (UTC). Despite a lack of reported damaging waves on the coast of British Columbia (largest amplitudes were recorded in Hawaii), three field surveys in the following weeks and months reveal that much of the remote unpopulated, uninstrumented coastline of western Haida Gwaii was impacted by significant tsunami waves that reached up to 13 m above the state of tide. Runup exceeded 3 m at sites spanning ~200 km of the coastline. Greatest impacts were apparent at the heads of narrow inlets and bays on western Moresby Island, where natural and manmade debris with a clear oceanward origin was found on the forest floor and caught in tree branches, inferring flow depths up to 2.5 m. Bays that see regular exposure to storm waves were generally less affected; at these sites a storm origin cannot be ruled out for the debris surveyed. Logs disturbed from their apparent former footprints on the forest floor at the head of Pocket Inlet provide evidence of complex runup, backwash and oblique flow patterns, as noted in other tsunamis. Discontinuous muddy sediments were found at a few sites; sedimentation was not proportional to runup. Lessons learned from our study of the impacts of the Haida Gwaii tsunami may prove useful to future post-tsunami and paleotsunami surveys, as well as tsunami hazard assessments.

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Acknowledgments

The manuscript was improved by useful comments from two anonymous reviewers and Alexander Rabinovich. Isaac Fine and Josef Cherniawsky provided us with preliminary tsunami models that were invaluable to our field survey; subsequent discussions with them were also useful in the preparation of this paper. Peter Haeussler and Rob Witter (USGS) and Ben Rahier provided important observations leading us to expand our survey and our findings. We thank many colleagues at the Pacific Geoscience Centre who provided us with field equipment as well as logistical and other support—including Mike Schmidt, Lisa Nykolaishen, Scott Dallimore, Roger MacLeod, Michelle Côté, Joe Henton, Thomas James, John Cassidy, and Garry Rogers. We also thank Matt Barker (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) for the loan of (and training on) the Total Station. We thank Cindy Wright, Lisa Nykolaishen and Brian Schofield for assistance in the field. Finally, the post-tsunami survey would not have been possible without the permission and support of Parks Canada and the Haida Nation. This is Earth Sciences Sector contribution No. 20130462.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    L. J. Leonard

  2. Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, Sidney, BC, Canada

    L. J. Leonard & J. M. Bednarski

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  1. L. J. Leonard
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  2. J. M. Bednarski
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Correspondence to L. J. Leonard.

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Leonard, L.J., Bednarski, J.M. Field Survey Following the 28 October 2012 Haida Gwaii Tsunami. Pure Appl. Geophys. 171, 3467–3482 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-014-0792-0

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