Detectability of seismic waves from the submarine landslide that caused the 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami

Abstract

Abstract. On 17 July 1998, a tsunami caused serious damage on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea about 20 min after the mainshock of an Mw 7.0 earthquake. The tsunami has been attributed to a submarine landslide that occurred about 13 min after the mainshock because its arrival at the coast was too late and its height too great to be the direct result of the fault slip of the earthquake. Bathymetric data recorded after the tsunami revealed an amphitheater-like structure that was consistent with a recent submarine landslide. Most current tsunami warning systems are based on analysis of the early arrivals of seismic waves generated by an earthquake. In this study we investigated whether evidence of the landslide could be identified in the coda waves recorded after the mainshock. Based on previous studies of the tsunami source, we constructed synthetic seismograms to represent the submarine landslide and compared them to the observed coda waves of the preceding earthquake, with particular attention to the period around 13 min after the mainshock. We found phases possibly corresponding to the landslide event. However, they were easily covered with coda waves from the mainshock. We concluded that the 1998 landslide was too small to be evident in the coda waves following the magnitude 7 earthquake.