Abstract
In this study, we present a linear inverse approach for the computation of the initial water displacement of a tsunami. The method uses empirical Green functions and linear shallow water wave theory. We apply this methodology to study the source of the 24 September 2013 tsunami off the Makran coast. We re-analyze the 2013 tsunami data, particularly the tide records in the coast of Oman and the DART buoy record in the Arabian Sea, to infer its source. We use wavelet and Fourier analyses to characterize the frequency content of the tide records and the possible influence of local harbor effects. We compute empirical Green functions for the possible source area, and then use a linear shallow water inversion technique to assess the water disturbance in the early stage of tsunami propagation. The comparison between forward modeling and observations shows a fair agreement with available data, particularly in what concerns the DART record. It also suggests the existence of local amplifications in a number of Omani harbors. The free surface elevation obtained by inversion of the waveforms is coherent with a landslide located close to 61.5° E, 24° N, sliding to the S or SSE direction. Our results show that the inversion technique used here leads to a better characterization of the tsunami source than the simple backward ray tracing which assumes a simple point source. In addition, these results strengthen the hypothesis that landslides might have played an important role in previous tsunami events in the area, and must be taken into account for tsunami hazard assessment on the Omani coast.
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Acknowledgments
All figures were prepared with MIRONE suite (Luis 2007). All data used in this study is available at the following websites: http://www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org, http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dart, http://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gridded_bathymetry_data.
Funding
This work was funded by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation project MAGICLAND – Marine-Geohazards Induced by underwater landslides in SW Iberian Margin (Ref: PTDC/CTA-GEO/30381/2017) and received financial support FCT through project UIDB/50019/2020 – IDL.
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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Seismic and Earthquake Engineering Studies in the Arabian Plate and the Surrounding Region
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Baptista, M.A., Miranda, J.M., Omira, R. et al. Study of the 24 September 2013 Oman Sea tsunami using linear shallow water inversion. Arab J Geosci 13, 606 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-020-05632-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-020-05632-z