Abstract
The 8 September 2017, Mw 8.2 earthquake offshore Chiapas, Mexico, is the largest earthquake in recorded history in Chiapas since 1902. It caused damage in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco, including more than 100 fatalities, over 1.5 million people were affected, and 41,000 homes were damaged in the state of Chiapas alone. This earthquake, an intraplate event on a normal fault on the oceanic subducting plate, generated a tsunami recorded at several tide gauge stations in Mexico and on the Pacific Ocean. Here, we report the physical effects of the tsunami on the Chiapas coast and analyze the societal implications of this tsunami on the basis of our post-tsunami field survey. The associated tsunami waves were recorded first at Huatulco tide gauge station at 5:04 (GMT) 12 min after the earthquake. We covered ground observations along 41 km of the coast of Chiapas, encompassing the sites with the highest projected wave heights based on our preliminary tsunami model (maximum tsunami amplitudes between 94.5° and 93.0°W). Runup and inundation distances were measured along eight sites. The tsunami occurred at low tide. The maximum runup was ~ 3 m at Boca del Cielo, and maximum inundation distance was 190 m in Puerto Arista, corresponding to the coast in front of the epicenter and in the central sector of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Tsunami scour and erosion was evident along the Chiapas coast. Tsunami deposits, mainly sand, reached up to 32 cm thickness thinning landward up to 172 m distance.
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Acknowledgements
Ramírez-Herrera acknowledges Grant no. PAPIIT IN109117, by Programa de Apoyos de Investigación e Inovación Tecnológica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. We acknowledge help in the field by S. Valente Gutierrez Q., A. Fabián de la Cruz, Armando Loza P., and Prins U. R. Acosta R. We thank Rick Wilson for insightful discussion of the tsunami event. We thank the people of Chiapas coastal communities for their cooperation.
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Figure S1. Tsunami waveform data fits. Black line is the observed, red line is modeled. Peak amplitudes in meters are shown next to each waveform (PNG 39 kb)
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Figure S2. Static deformation analysis based on the tide gauges near the event. For each of the four stations array, the upper panel shows on red line the raw signal referenced to the zero-sea level; the black line corresponds to the low-pass filtered signal. The dashed lines correspond to the mean sea level pre- and post-tsunami. The lower panel shows the corresponding de-tided tsunami wave height. Labels of each stations read as follow: Hua – Huatulco; pangel – Puerto Angel; scruz – Salina Cruz; pchis – Puerto Chiapas tide gauge stations (TIFF 15772 kb)
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Ramírez-Herrera, M.T., Corona, N., Ruiz-Angulo, A. et al. The 8 September 2017 Tsunami Triggered by the Mw 8.2 Intraplate Earthquake, Chiapas, Mexico. Pure Appl. Geophys. 175, 25–34 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1765-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1765-x