Evidence for Great Tsunamigenic Earthquakes (M 8.6) along the Mexican Subduction Zone

Suárez, Gerardo; Albini, Paola

doi:10.1785/0120080201

Cited by 74 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…However, the largest documented historical event occurred along the coast from Guerrero to Tehuantepec in 1787 with M ~ 8.6 (Suárez and Albini, 2009) (Iquique,M ~8.8), and this remains a major seismic gap. The 1922 rupture zone along Atacama likely has substantial strain accumulation relative to surrounding regions, as geodetic measurements indicate that the megathrust is pervasively locked in the region (Métois et al, 2014).…”

Section: Great Earthquake Catalog (1900-2016)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Subduction zone megathrust earthquakes

2018

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Subduction zone megathrust faults host Earth's largest earthquakes, along with multitudes of smaller events that contribute to plate convergence. An understanding of the faulting behavior of megathrusts is central to seismic and tsunami hazard assessment around subduction zone margins. Cumulative sliding displacement across each megathrust, which extends from the trench to the downdip transition to interplate ductile deformation, is accommodated by a combination of rapid stick-slip earthquakes, episodic slow-slip events, and quasi-static creep. Megathrust faults have heterogeneous frictional properties that contribute to earthquake diversity, which is considered here in terms of regional variations in maximum recorded magnitudes, Gutenberg-Richter b values, earthquake productivity, and cumulative seismic moment depth distributions for the major subduction zones. Great earthquakes on megathrusts occur in irregular cycles of interseismic strain accumulation, foreshock activity, main-shock rupture, postseismic slip, viscoelastic relaxation, and fault healing, with all stages now being captured by geophysical monitoring. Observations of depth-dependent radiation characteristics, large earthquake slip distributions, variations in rupture velocities, radiated energy and stress drop, and relationships to aftershock distributions and afterslip are discussed. Seismic sequences for very large events have some degree of regularity within subduction zone segments, but this can be complicated by supercycles of intermittent huge ruptures that traverse segment boundaries. Factors influencing variability of large megathrust ruptures, such as large-scale plate structure and kinematics, presence of sediments and fluids, lower-plate bathymetric roughness, and upper-plate structure, are discussed. The diversity of megathrust failure processes presents a suite of natural hazards, including earthquake shaking, submarine slumping, and tsunami generation. Improved monitoring of the offshore environment is needed to better quantify and mitigate the threats posed by megathrust earthquakes globally.

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Section: Great Earthquake Catalog (1900-2016)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Subduction zone megathrust earthquakes

2018

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“…These cases are the Mexico earthquake of 1787 and the Colombia earthquake of 1906. For both cases the characterization of the sources has been made from historical observations (Stewart et al, 1981;Kanamori and McNally, 1982;Suárez and Albini, 2009). In Table 1 the rupture parameters for single rectangular sources of these intermediate events are shown.…”

Section: Distant Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tsunami hazard assessment in El Salvador, Central America, from seismic sources through flooding numerical models.

Álvarez‐Gómez

Aniel-Quiroga

Gutiérrez

et al. 2013

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America; its coast has an approximate length of 320 km, 29 municipalities and more than 700 000 inhabitants. In El Salvador there were 15 recorded tsunamis between 1859 and 2012, 3 of them causing damages and resulting in hundreds of victims. Hazard assessment is commonly based on propagation numerical models for earthquake-generated tsunamis and can be approached through both probabilistic and deterministic methods. A deterministic approximation has been applied in this study as it provides essential information for coastal planning and management. The objective of the research was twofold: on the one hand the characterization of the threat over the entire coast of El Salvador, and on the other the computation of flooding maps for the three main localities of the Salvadorian coast. For the latter we developed high-resolution flooding models. For the former, due to the extension of the coastal area, we computed maximum elevation maps, and from the elevation in the near shore we computed an estimation of the run-up and the flooded area using empirical relations. We have considered local sources located in the Middle America Trench, characterized seismotectonically, and distant sources in the rest of Pacific Basin, using historical and recent earthquakes and tsunamis. We used a hybrid finite differencesfinite volumes numerical model in this work, based on the linear and non-linear shallow water equations, to simulate a total of 24 earthquake-generated tsunami scenarios. Our results show that at the western Salvadorian coast, run-up values higher than 5 m are common, while in the eastern area, approximately from La Libertad to the Gulf of Fonseca, the run-up values are lower. The more exposed areas to flooding are the lowlands in the Lempa River delta and the Barra de Santiago Western Plains. The results of the empirical approximation used for the whole country are similar to the results obtained with the high-resolution numerical modelling, being a good and fast approximation to obtain preliminary tsunami hazard estimations. In Acajutla and La Libertad, both important tourism centres being actively developed, flooding depths between 2 and 4 m are frequent, accompanied with high and very high person instability hazard. Inside the Gulf of Fonseca the impact of the waves is almost negligible.

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“…They have mainly triggered local tsunamis of limited extent, but there is also evidence of the occurrence of a much larger event along the coast of Oaxaca on 28 March 1787. The description of such an event by Suárez and Albini (2009) suggests a sea withdrawal of over 4 km, followed by a flood of about 6 km near the Alotengo Lagoon. The waves also transported inland some fish and shellfish at Pochutla (nowadays Puerto Angel) and also at the coastal area south of the city of Tehuantepec.…”

Section: Observed Tsunamismentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of tsunami hazards for the Central American Pacific coast from southern Mexico to northern Peru

Brizuela

Armigliato

Tinti

2014

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Central America (CA), from Guatemala to Panama, has been struck by at least 52 tsunamis between 1539 and 2013, and in the extended region from Mexico to northern Peru (denoted as ECA, Extended Central America in this paper) the number of recorded tsunamis in the same time span is more than 100, most of which were triggered by earthquakes located in the Middle American Trench that runs parallel to the Pacific coast. The most severe event in the catalogue is the tsunami that occurred on 2 September 1992 off Nicaragua, with run-up measured in the range of 5-10 m in several places along the Nicaraguan coast. The aim of this paper is to assess the tsunami hazard on the Pacific coast of this extended region, and to this purpose a hybrid probabilistic-deterministic analysis is performed, that is adequate for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. More specifically, the probabilistic approach is used to compute the Gutenberg-Richter coefficients of the main seismic tsunamigenic zones of the area and to estimate the annual rate of occurrence of tsunamigenic earthquakes and their corresponding return period. The output of the probabilistic part of the method is taken as input by the deterministic part, which is applied to calculate the tsunami run-up distribution along the coast.

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Evidence for Great Tsunamigenic Earthquakes (M 8.6) along the Mexican Subduction Zone

Cited by 74 publications

References 16 publications

Subduction zone megathrust earthquakes

Subduction zone megathrust earthquakes

Tsunami hazard assessment in El Salvador, Central America, from seismic sources through flooding numerical models.

Assessment of tsunami hazards for the Central American Pacific coast from southern Mexico to northern Peru

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