RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 8, ES5003, doi:10.2205/2006ES000210, 2006

The Tsunami of 7 February 1963 in the Bay of Corinth (Greece)

[7]  The Bay of Corinth is a scoop-like tectonic structure rapidly widening in the southerly direction due to the stress field, and this results in high seismicity of the region related to an E-W trending fault. The fault is located between the mainland of Greece in the north and the Peloponessus Peninsula in the south and is enclosed in a water basin supplying sediments the northern and southern coasts of the bay (Figure 1). Intense tectonic activity often associated with fractures in sedimentary masses leads to the formation of steep submarine slopes. As a result, generation of both seismic and aseismic (landslide-induced) tsunamis is an additional geophysically important feature of the Bay of Corinth.

[8]  A typical landslide-induced tsunami in the Bay of Corinth was the wave of 7 February 1963, whose characteristics have been studied in detail [Papadopoulos, 2000]. The maximum wave height reached 5-6 m at the southern coast. Field observations [Galanopoulos et al., 1964] leave no doubts that the tsunami was caused by a sudden aseismic seaward landslide of the submarine slope overloaded by sedimentary masses (57,000 m3 in volume) that were accumulated in the mouth of the local Salmenikos River on the southern coast. The sliding masses were mostly submarine.


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Citation: Lobkovsky, L. I., R. Kh. Mazova, I. A. Garagash, and L. Yu. Kataeva (2006), Numerical simulation of the 7 February 1963 tsunami in the Bay of Corinth, Greece, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 8, ES5003, doi:10.2205/2006ES000210.

Copyright 2006 by the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences

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