The Seismic Project of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program

Abstract

Abstract. In 1997, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the five western States of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington joined in a partnership called the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) to enhance the quality and quantity of seismic data provided to the NOAA tsunami warning centers in Alaska and Hawaii. The NTHMP funded a seismic project that now provides the warning centers with real-time seismic data over dedicated communication links and the Internet from regional seismic networks monitoring earthquakes in the five western states, the U.S. National Seismic Network in Colorado, and from domestic and global seismic stations operated by other agencies. The goal of the project is to reduce the time needed to issue a tsunami warning by providing the warning centers with high-dynamic range, broadband waveforms in near real time. An additional goal is to reduce the likelihood of issuing false tsunami warnings by rapidly providing to the warning centers parametric information on earthquakes that could indicate their tsunamigenic potential, such as hypocenters, magnitudes, moment tensors, and shake distribution maps. New or upgraded field instrumentation was installed over a 5-year period at 53 seismic stations in the five western states. Data from these instruments has been integrated into the seismic network utilizing Earthworm software. This network has significantly reduced the time needed to respond to teleseismic and regional earthquakes. Notably, the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center responded to the 28 February 2001 Mw 6.8 Nisqually earthquake beneath Olympia, Washington within 2 minutes compared to an average response time of over 10 minutes for the previous 18 years.

Measuring Tsunami Planning Capacity on U.S. Pacific Coast

“…Local planners must accurately identify tsunami risk areas, so state and federal programs must provide comprehensive information about tsunami hazards to local planners ͑Bernard 2005; Darienzo et al 2005;Dengler 2005;Johnston et al 2005;Jonientz-Trisler et al 2005;McCreery 2005;Oppenheimer et al 2005;Ramirez and Perez 2004;Titov et al 2005͒. In fact, much of this information is available on the internet and some is GIS based, so it is readily available.…”

A New P‐Wave Tomographic Model (CAP22) for North America: Implications for the Subduction and Cratonic Metasomatic Modification History of Western Canada and Alaska

“…Seismic data are extracted from the following specific networks, with more details available in the Open Research Section and Supporting Information S1: AK‐1987 (Alaska Earthquake Center, Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks, 1987; D’Alessandro & Ruppert, 2012), AT‐1967 (NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USA), 1967; Oppenheimer et al., 2005), AV‐1988 (Alaska Volcano Observatory/USGS, 1988; Dixon et al., 2013), CN‐1975 (Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN Canada), 1975; North, 1994; Bent et al., 2019), C8‐2002 (Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN Canada), 2002), EO‐2018 (University of Calgary (U of C Canada), 2018; Boggs et al., 2018), GM‐2016 (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016; Ringler et al., 2021), II‐1986 (Ringler et al., 2021; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1986), IM‐1965 (Ringler et al., 2021; Various Authors, 1965), IU‐2014 (Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory/USGS, 2014; Ringler et al., 2021), NY‐2013 (University of Ottawa (uOttawa Canada), 2013; Estève et al., 2020), OO‐2013 (Rutgers University, 2013), PO‐2000 (Eaton et al., 2004; Geological Survey of Canada, 2000; Snyder et al., 2003), PN‐1998 (Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington), 1998), RV‐2013 (Alberta Geological Survey / Alberta Energy Regulator, 2013; Schultz et al., 2015), TD‐2013 (TransAlta Corporation, 2013; Cui & Atkinson, 2016), US‐1990 (Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory (ASL)/USGS, 1990; Ringler et al., 2021), XL‐2017 (McGill University (Canada), 2017; Roth et al., 2020), XM‐2011 (Keranen, 2011), XN‐2003 (Gaherty & Revenaugh, 2003; Mercier et al., 2009), XO‐2018 (Abers et al., 2018; Barcheck et al., 2020), XR‐2004 (Song & Christensen, 2004), XV‐2007 (Larsen & Truffer, 2007), XY‐2005 (Calkins et al., 2010; Dueker & Zandt, …”

“…ALS: AK‐1987 (Alaska Earthquake Center, Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks, 1987; D’Alessandro & Ruppert, 2012), AT‐1967 (NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USA), 1967; Oppenheimer et al., 2005), AV‐1988 (Alaska Volcano Observatory/USGS, 1988; Dixon et al., 2013), GM‐2016 (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016; Ringler et al., 2021), II‐1986 (Ringler et al., 2021; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1986), IM‐1965 (Ringler et al., 2021; Various Authors, 1965), IU‐2014 (Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory/USGS, 2014; Ringler et al., 2021), PN‐1998 (Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington), 1998), US‐1990 (Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory (ASL)/USGS, 1990; Ringler et al., 2021), XM‐2011 (Keranen, 2011), XR‐2004 (Song & Christensen, 2004), XV‐2007 (Larsen & Truffer, 2007), XZ‐2005 (Berger et al., 2008; Hansen & Pavlis, 2005), ZE‐2015 (Tape et al., 2015, 2017). ALV: AV‐1988 (Alaska Volcano Observatory/USGS, 1988; Dixon et al., 2013).…”