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

Introduction

[2]  Recently the problem of tsunami generation due to seismic or aseismic submarine rockfalls or coastal landslides has received much attention. An example is the catastrophic tsunami produced by the 17 July, 1998 ( M = 7.1) earthquake in Papua New Guinea (PNG) (e.g., see [Mazova et al., 2004]). Although the PNG tsunami generation mechanism is still debated, several observation and model data indicate that a submarine landslide was the tsunami cause [Mazova, 2003; Papadopoulos, 2000]. Moreover, detailed descriptions of other cases of landslide-induced tsunamis have been published over the last 50 years (for example, in the South Aegean Sea (Greece) in 1956; in Lituya Bay (Alaska) in 1958, in the city of Aegion (Greece) in 1963; in the Vayont valley (Italy) in 1963; in Norway and Nice (France) in 1979; in Skagway Harbor (Alaska) in 1994; in Izmit (Turkey) in 1999; and Fatu Hiva (French Polynesia) in 1999 (e.g. see [Fine et al, 1998; Mazova, 2003; Murti, 1981; Papadopoulos, 2000])).

[3]  In particular, as was shown in [Papadopoulos, 2000], a landslide-induced tsunami is a rather frequent phenomenon off the Greece coasts. For example, the tsunami wave that arose after the strong ( M = 7.5) 7 July, 1956 earthquake in the South Aegean Sea was due to not only a seismic fault motion but also a seismically induced slide of submarine sedimentary masses. Another example is the local strong tsunami generated by the aseismic landslide of 7 February 1963, in the Aegion area of the western Bay of Corinth (central Greece).

[4]  Statistical analysis and computations show that submarine and subaerial landslides can generate tsunami waves of a considerable height at the coast near their source [Mazova, 2003]. The length of such a wave is a few kilometers, and its height rapidly decreases due to frequency dispersion. On the contrary, the propagation range of tsunamis generated by a fault is very long, and their heights in open ocean are relatively small. Their wavelength is of the order a few hundreds of kilometers, while the height of wave decreases slowly because of the weakness of dispersion effects. A landslide-generated tsunami often results in catastrophic consequences [Mazova, 2003] and, therefore, the problem of landslide-generated waves along an open coastline or in a closed water area is of great practical interest for engineering in coastal zones.

[5]  Significant progress has been made in the last decade in both numerical simulation of landslide-induced tsunamis and development of analytical models for an adequate description of the tsunami generation [Mazova, 2003]. The most often used are the rigid block model [Iwasaki, 1997] and viscous or viscoplastic models [Jiang and LeBlond, 1993, 1994]. However, as was noted by Fine et al, [1998], the rigid block model overestimates the responses of the water surface to submarine disturbances, whereas viscous/viscoplastic models underestimate it. Therefore, to adequately model a tsunami from a submarine landslide, a model is required that takes into account both the detailed structure of the landslide body and the mechanical properties of landslide-body constituents characterizing its behavior during the landsliding process.

2006ES000210-fig01
Figure 1
[6]  In this work, we perform numerical simulation of the generation and propagation of tsunami waves due to sliding of the submarine portion of a continental slope, with the landslide behavior being described in terms of an elastoplastic model. As a case study, we chose the tsunami of 7 February 1963, in the Bay of Corinth (central Greece). We considered the shoreline segment shown by an arrow in the schematic map of the Bay of Corinth (Figure 1) [Mazova et al., 2004]. The landslide motion and the generation and propagation of the tsunami were computed in a 1-D approximation.


RJES

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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