Time-dependent probabilistic tsunami risk assessment: application to Tofino, British Columbia, Canada, subjected to Cascadia subduction earthquakes

A new time-dependent probabilistic tsunami risk model is developed to facilitate the long-term risk management strategies for coastal communities. The model incorporates the time-dependency of earthquake occurrence and considers numerous heterogeneous slip distributions via a stochastic source modeling approach. Tidal level effects are examined by considering different baseline sea levels. The model is applied to Tofino, British Columbia, Canada within the Cascadia subduction zone. High-resolution topography and high-quality exposure data are utilized to accurately evaluate tsunami damage and economic loss to buildings. The results are tsunami loss curves accounting for different elapsed times since the last major event. The evolutionary aspects of Tofino's time-dependent tsunami risk profiles show that the current tsunami risk is lower than the tsunami risk based on the conventional time-independent Poisson occurrence model. In contrast, the future tsunami risk in 2100 will exceed the time-independent tsunami risk estimate.

Natural Fractals as Irreversible Disorder: Entropy Approach from Cracks in the Semi Brittle-Ductile Lithosphere and Generalization

The seismo-electromagnetic theory describes the growth of fractally distributed cracks within the lithosphere that generate the emission of magnetic anomalies prior to large earthquakes. One of the main physical properties of this theory is their consistency regarding the second law of thermodynamics. That is, the crack generation of the lithosphere corresponds to the manifestation of an irreversible process evolving from one steady state to another. Nevertheless, there is still not a proper thermodynamic description of lithospheric crack generation. That is why this work presents the derivation of the entropy changes generated by the lithospheric cracking. It is found that the growth of the fractal cracks increases the entropy prior impending earthquakes. As fractality is observed across different topics, our results are generalized by using the Onsager's coefficient for any system characterized by fractal volumes. It is found that the growth of fractality in nature corresponds to an irreversible process.

Machine learning-based tsunami inundation prediction derived from offshore observations

The world’s largest and densest tsunami observing system gives us the leverage to develop a method for a real-time tsunami inundation prediction based on machine learning. Our method utilizes 150 offshore stations encompassing the Japan Trench to simultaneously predict tsunami inundation at seven coastal cities stretching ~100 km along the southern Sanriku coast. We trained the model using 3093 hypothetical tsunami scenarios from the megathrust (Mw 8.0–9.1) and nearby outer-rise (Mw 7.0–8.7) earthquakes. Then, the model was tested against 480 unseen scenarios and three near-field historical tsunami events. The proposed machine learning-based model can achieve comparable accuracy to the physics-based model with ~99% computational cost reduction, thus facilitates a rapid prediction and an efficient uncertainty quantification. Additionally, the direct use of offshore observations can increase the forecast lead time and eliminate the uncertainties typically associated with a tsunami source estimate required by the conventional modeling approach.

One of the main challenges in the tsunami inundation prediction is related to the real-time computational efforts done under restrictive time constraints. Here the authors show that using machine learning-based model, we can achieve comparable accuracy to the physics-based model with ~99% computational cost reduction.

SEM3D: A 3D High-Fidelity Numerical Earthquake Simulator for Broadband (0–10 Hz) Seismic Response Prediction at a Regional Scale

In this paper, we present SEM3D: a 3D high-fidelity numerical earthquake simulator that is tailored to predict the seismic wave field of complex earthquake scenarios from the fault to the epicenter site. SEM3D solves the wave-propagation problem by means of the spectral element method (SEM). The presented demonstrative test case was a blind MW6.0 earthquake scenario at the European experimental site located in the sedimentary basin of Argostoli on the island of Kefalonia (Western Greece). A well-constrained geological model, obtained via geophysical inversion studies, and seismological model, given the large database of seismic traces recorded by the newly installed ARGONET network, of the site were considered. The domain of interest covered a region of 44 km × 44 km × 63 km, with the smallest grid size of 130 m × 130 m × 35 m. This allowed us to simulate the ground shaking in its entirety, from the seismic source to the epicenter site within a 0–10 Hz frequency band. Owing to the pseudo-spectral nature of the numerical method and given the high polynomial order (i.e., degree nine), the model featured 1.35·1010 DOFs (degrees of freedom). The variability of the synthetic wave field generated within the basin is assessed herein, exploring different random realizations of the mean velocity structure and heterogeneous rupture path.

Stochastic Analysis of Tsunami Hazard of the 1945 Makran Subduction Zone Mw 8.1–8.3 Earthquakes

Historical records of major earthquakes in the northwestern Indian Ocean along the Makran Subduction Zone (MSZ) indicate high potential tsunami hazards for coastal regions of Pakistan, Iran, Oman, and western India. There are fast-growing and populous cities and ports that are economically important, such as Chabahar (Iran), Gwadar (Pakistan), Muscat (Oman), and Mumbai (India). In this study, we assess the tsunami hazard of the 1945 MSZ event (fatalities ≈300 people) using stochastic earthquake rupture models of Mw 8.1–8.3 by considering uncertainties related to rupture geometry and slip heterogeneity. To quantify the uncertainty of earthquake source characteristics in tsunami hazard analysis, 1000 stochastic tsunami scenarios are generated via a stochastic source modeling approach. There are main objectives of this study: (1) developing stochastic earthquake slip models for the MSZ, (2) comparing results of the simulation with the existing observations of the 1945 event, and (3) evaluating the effect of uncertain fault geometry and earthquake slip based on simulated near-shore wave profiles. The 1945 Makran earthquake is focused upon by comparing model predictions with existing observations, consisting of far-field tsunami waveforms recorded on tide gauges in Karachi and Mumbai and coseismic deformation along the Pakistani coast. The results identify the source model that matches the existing observations of the 1945 Makran event best among the stochastic sources. The length, width, mean slip, and maximum slip of the identified source model are 270 km, 130 km, 2.9 m, and 19.3 m, respectively. Moreover, the sensitivity of the maximum tsunami heights along the coastline to the location of a large-slip area is highlighted. The maximum heights of the tsunami and coseismic deformation results at Ormara are in the range of 0.3–7.0 m and −2.7 to 1.1 m, respectively, for the 1000 stochastic source models.

Effects of earthquake spatial slip correlation on variability of tsunami potential energy and intensities

Variability characterization of tsunami generation is quintessential for proper hazard estimation. For this purpose we isolate the variability which stems solely from earthquake spatial source complexity, by simulating tsunami inundation in the near-field with a simplified digital elevation model, using nonlinear shallow water equations. For earthquake rupture, we prescribe slip to have a log-normal probability distribution function and von Kármán correlation between each subfault pair, which we assume decreases with increasing euclidean distance between them. From the generated near-field inundation time-series, emanating from several thousand synthetic slip realizations across a magnitude 9 earthquake, we extract several tsunami intensity measures at the coast. Results show that all considered tsunami intensity measures and potential energy variability increase with increasing spatial slip correlations. Finally, we show that larger spatial slip correlations produce higher tsunami intensity measure exceedance probabilities within the near-field, which highlights the need to quantify the uncertainty of earthquake spatial slip correlation.

3D Coseismic Deformation Field and Source Parameters of the 2017 Iran-Iraq Mw7.3 Earthquake Inferred from DInSAR and MAI Measurements

The coseismic slip on the main fault related to the 2017 Iran-Iraq Mw7.3 earthquake has been investigated by previous studies using DInSAR (differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar) ground deformation measurements. However, DInSAR observation is not sensitive to the ground deformation in the along-track (AT) direction. Therefore, only the one-dimensional (1D) DInSAR coseismic deformation field measurements, derived in the LOS (line-of-sight) direction of radar, was applied in source parameters estimation. To further improve the accuracy of the fault slip inversion, the 3D (three-dimensional) coseismic deformation fields were reconstructed in the first place, by a combined use of the DInSAR and MAI (multiple aperture InSAR) measurements. Subsequently, the LOS and 3D deformation data sets were used as the constraint respectively, to perform a two-step inversion scheme to find an optimal geometry and slip distribution on the main fault. The comparative analysis indicated that the 3D coseismic deformation data sets improved the inversion-accuracy by 30%. Besides, the fault invention results revealed a deep dislocation on a NNW trending fault (the strike is 352.63°) extending about 60 km, along the fault dips 14.76° to the ENE. The estimated seismic moment is 8.44 × 1019 Nm (Mw7.3), which is close to the solution provided by USGS (United States Geological Survey). The slip distributed at the depth between 12 and 18 km, and the peak slip of 6.53 m appears at the depth of 14.5 km left near the epicenter. Considering the geological structure in the earthquake region and fault source-parameters, it comes to a preliminary conclusion that the ZMFF (the Zagros Mountain Front fault) should be responsible for the earthquake. In general, this paper demonstrated the superiority of using the 3D coseismic deformation fields on source parameters estimation.

Stochastic coupled simulation of strong motion and tsunami for the 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquake

This study conducts coupled simulation of strong motion and tsunami using stochastically generated earthquake source models. It is focused upon the 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquake. The ground motion time-histories are simulated using the multiple-event stochastic finite-fault method, which takes into account multiple local rupture processes in strong motion generation areas. For tsunami simulation, multiple realizations of wave profiles are generated by evaluating nonlinear shallow water equations with run-up. Key objectives of this research are: (i) to investigate the sensitivity of strong motion and tsunami hazard parameters to asperities and strong motion generation areas, and (ii) to quantify the spatial variability and dependency of strong motion and tsunami predictions due to common earthquake sources. The investigations provide valuable insights in understanding the temporal and spatial impact of cascading earthquake hazards. Importantly, the study also develops an integrated strong motion and tsunami simulator, which is capable of capturing earthquake source uncertainty. Such an advanced numerical tool is necessary for assessing the performance of buildings and infrastructure that are subjected to cascading earthquake-tsunami hazards.

Shallow slip amplification and enhanced tsunami hazard unravelled by dynamic simulations of mega-thrust earthquakes

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake produced an unexpected large amount of shallow slip greatly contributing to the ensuing tsunami. How frequent are such events? How can they be efficiently modelled for tsunami hazard? Stochastic slip models, which can be computed rapidly, are used to explore the natural slip variability; however, they generally do not deal specifically with shallow slip features. We study the systematic depth-dependence of slip along a thrust fault with a number of 2D dynamic simulations using stochastic shear stress distributions and a geometry based on the cross section of the Tohoku fault. We obtain a probability density for the slip distribution, which varies both with depth, earthquake size and whether the rupture breaks the surface. We propose a method to modify stochastic slip distributions according to this dynamically-derived probability distribution. This method may be efficiently applied to produce large numbers of heterogeneous slip distributions for probabilistic tsunami hazard analysis. Using numerous M9 earthquake scenarios, we demonstrate that incorporating the dynamically-derived probability distribution does enhance the conditional probability of exceedance of maximum estimated tsunami wave heights along the Japanese coast. This technique for integrating dynamic features in stochastic models can be extended to any subduction zone and faulting style.

Seismological asperities from the point of view of dynamic rupture modeling: the 2007 Mw6.6 Chuetsu-Oki, Japan, earthquake

We study the ground motion simulations based on three finite-source models for the 2007 Mw6.6 Niigata Chuetsu-oki, Japan, earthquake in order to discuss the performance of the input ground motion estimations for the near-field seismic hazard analysis. The three models include a kinematic source inverted from the regional accelerations, a dynamic source on a planar fault with three asperities inferred from the very-near-field ground motion particle motions, and another dynamic source model with conjugate fault segments. The ground motions are calculated for an available 3D geological model using a finite-difference method. For the comparison, we apply a goodness-of-fit score to the ground motion parameters at different stations, including the nearest one that is almost directly above the ruptured fault segments. The dynamic rupture models show good performance. We find that seismologically inferred earthquake asperities on a single fault plane can be expressed with two conjugate segments. The rupture transfer from one segment to another can generate a significant radiation; this could be interpreted as an asperity projected onto a single fault plane. This example illustrates the importance of the fault geometry that has to be taken into account when estimating the very-near-field ground motion.

Shallow fault-zone dilatancy recovery after the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran

Earthquakes radiate from slip on discrete faults, but also commonly involve distributed deformation within a broader fault zone, especially near the surface. Variations in rock strain during an earthquake are caused by heterogeneity in the elastic stress before the earthquake, by variable material properties and geometry of the fault zones, and by dynamic processes during the rupture. Stress changes due to the earthquake slip, both dynamic and static, have long been thought to cause dilatancy in the fault zone that recovers after the earthquake. Decreases in the velocity of seismic waves passing through the fault zone due to coseismic dilatancy have been observed followed by postseismic seismic velocity increases during healing. Dilatancy and its recovery have not previously been observed geodetically. Here we use interferometric analysis of synthetic aperture radar images to measure postseismic surface deformation after the 2003 Bam, Iran, earthquake and show reversal of coseismic dilatancy in the shallow fault zone that causes subsidence of the surface. This compaction of the fault zone is directly above the patch of greatest coseismic slip at depth. The dilatancy and compaction probably reflects distributed shear and damage to the material during the earthquake that heals afterwards. Coseismic and postseismic deformation spread through a fault zone volume may resolve the paradox of shallow slip deficits for some strike-slip fault ruptures.