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- The contribution of submarine optical fiber telecom cables to the monitoring of earthquakes and tsunamis in the NE AtlanticPublication . Matias, Luis; Carrilho, Fernando; Sá, Vasco; Omira, Rachid; Niehus, Manfred; Corela, Carlos; Barros, José; Omar, YasserRecent developments in optical fiber cable technology allows the use of existing and future submarine telecommunication cables to provide seismic and sea-level information. In this work we study the impact of three different technologies, 1) SMART, Science Monitoring and Reliable Telecommunications; 2) DAS, Distributed Acoustic Sensing, and; 3) LI, Laser Interferometry, for effective earthquake and tsunami monitoring capabilities on the NE Atlantic. The SW Iberia is the source area of the largest destructive earthquake that struck Europe since the year 1000, the November 1, 1755 event. This earthquake generated also a destructive tsunami affecting the whole basin. This tectonically active area is crossed by the CAM (Continent-Azores-Madeira) submarine cable on a ring configuration. Due to the end of cable lifetime the current cables need to be replaced by 2024 and the technical requirements must be defined in mid-2021. The Azores archipelago is the focus of frequent seismic crizes and occasionally destructive earthquakes. A common feature of these seismic events is that they take place offshore, an area that is difficult to monitor from land-based instruments. In this work we evaluate the contribution of SMART cables to the earthquake monitoring and tsunami early warning system in SW Iberia and show how DAS and LI can improve earthquake monitoring on two active domains of the Azores. For tsunami early warning, we show how the offshore sea-level measurements provide clean offshore tsunami records when compared to coastal observations by tide gauges, which greatly improves the efficiency of the system. For earthquake monitoring, the data processing operational routine is examined using Monte-Carlo simulations. These take into consideration the errors in phase picking and the uncertainty on the 1D velocity model used for earthquake location. Quality of earthquake location is examined using the difference between the true location and the centroid of the computed epicenters and by the overall ellipse of uncertainty obtained from 100 runs. The added value provided by instrumented submarine telecommunication cables to mitigate earthquake and tsunami risk demonstrated in this work will help authorities and the society in general to take the political decisions required for its full implementation worldwide.
- Synthetic tsunami waveform catalogs with kinematic constraintsPublication . Baptista, Maria Ana Carvalho Viana; Miranda, Jorge Miguel; Matias, Luis; Omira, RachidIn this study we present a comprehensive methodology to produce a synthetic tsunami waveform catalogue in the northeast Atlantic, east of the Azores islands. The method uses a synthetic earthquake catalogue compatible with plate kinematic constraints of the area. We use it to assess the tsunami hazard from the transcurrent boundary located between Iberia and the Azores, whose western part is known as the Gloria Fault. This study focuses only on earthquake-generated tsunamis. Moreover, we assume that the time and space distribution of the seismic events is known. To do this, we compute a synthetic earthquake catalogue including all fault parameters needed to characterize the seafloor deformation covering the time span of 20 000 years, which we consider long enough to ensure the representability of earthquake generation on this segment of the plate boundary. The computed time and space rupture distributions are made compatible with global kinematic plate models. We use the tsunami empirical Green's functions to efficiently compute the synthetic tsunami waveforms for the dataset of coastal locations, thus providing the basis for tsunami impact characterization. We present the results in the form of offshore wave heights for all coastal points in the dataset. Our results focus on the northeast Atlantic basin, showing that earthquake-induced tsunamis in the transcurrent segment of the Azores-Gibraltar plate boundary pose a minor threat to coastal areas north of Portugal and beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. However, in Morocco, the Azores, and the Madeira islands, we can expect wave heights between 0.6 and 0.8 m, leading to precautionary evacuation of coastal areas. The advantages of the method are its easy application to other regions and the low computation effort needed.
- On the source of the 8 May 1939 Azores earthquake - tsunami observations and numerical modellingPublication . Reis, Cláudia; Omira, Rachid; Matias, Luis; Baptista, Maria Ana Carvalho VianaOn 8 May 1939, an earthquake (Ms7.1) occurred near the Azores archipelago, with an epicentre located close to the western end of the Gloria fault. Previous studies present different epicentre locations spreading over a large area, and two different types of focal mechanisms. Given these uncertainties, the interpretation of the seismological information in a complex tectonic environment between the Gloria Fault and the Terceira Ridge is a matter of debate. The event caused a small tsunami recorded in the Azores Islands. In this study, we use the tsunami observations and tsunami numerical modelling to select the earthquake fault rupture that best fits the tsunami observations. We consider the different focal mechanism solutions, perform tsunami numerical modelling, and compute synthetic tsunami waveforms at the tide gauge locations. We find that an earthquake caused by a low-angle dipping fault with dominant strike-slip movement generates a tsunami that reproduces well the record at Ponta Delgada tide gauge. Finally, in areas where earthquakes are rare, the study of ancient earthquakes must use all information available, namely tsunami observations and mareograph data.
- Reply to comment on "Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard in the Northeast Atlantic From Near- and Far-Field Tectonic Sources'' by Fonseca (Pure and Applied Geophysics, 2016)Publication . Omira, Rachid; Matias, Luis; Baptista, Maria Ana Carvalho VianaThe recent events of the Indian Ocean 2004 and the Tohoku-Oki 2011 have brought to the fore the hazardous nature of the tsunami phenomenon. Consequently, understanding and quantifying the tsunami hazard have gained a significant interest from researchers worldwide. Traditionally, deterministic approach, based on the maximum credible event or the worst-case scenario, has been used to assess the tsunami hazard. However, the absence of a single comprehensive way to define this scenario makes the usefulness of the deterministic method limited (Geist and Lynett 2014). Probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment (PTHA), on the other hand, takes into consideration the contribution of multiple tsunamigenic sources to elaborate tsunami hazard maps. PTHA is now widely used in different tsunami-prone areas of the globe (Annaka et al. 2007; Thio et al. 2007; Sørensen et al. 2012; Yadav et al. 2013; Roshan et al. 2016). In the NE Atlantic, many efforts have been conducted in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 to assess hazard posed by tsunamis. They mainly addressed the tsunami hazard through the deterministic approach with a particular focus on the coastal impact from the 1755-like event (Omira et al. 2010, 2011, 2013; Baptista et al. 2011). Alternatively, Omira et al. (2015) and, more recently, Omira et al. (2016) introduced the probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment in the NE Atlantic from sources of tectonic origin. We welcome the comment by Fonseca (2016) as it gives us the opportunity to better discuss the progress in the PTHA in the NE Atlantic. In his comment, Fonseca (2016) focuses on three main points: (1) the communication of the hazard; (2) the conservatism in the hazard analysis; (3) the uncertainty treatment. The reply to the comments raised by Fonseca (2016) will be addressed in the following sections.
- The making of the NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18)Publication . Basili, Roberto; Brizuela, Beatriz; Herrero, Andre; Iqbal, Sarfraz; Lorito, Stefano; Maesano, Francesco Emanuele; Murphy, Shane; Perfetti, Paolo; Romano, Fabrizio; Scala, Antonio; SELVA, Jacopo; Taroni, Matteo; Tiberti, Mara Monica; Thio, Hong Kie; Tonini, Roberto; Volpe, Manuela; Glimsdal, Sylfest; Harbitz, Carl Bonnevie; Lovholt, Finn; Baptista, Maria Ana Carvalho Viana; Carrilho, Fernando; Matias, Luis; Omira, Rachid; Babeyko, Andrey; Hoechner, Andreas; Gurbuz, Mucahit; Pekcan, Onur; Yalciner, Ahmet; Canals, Miquel; Lastras, Galderic; Agalos, Apostolos; Papadopoulos, Gerassimos; TRIANTAFYLLOU, IOANNA; Benchekroun, Sabah; Jaouadi, Hedi Agrebi; Ben Ahmed, Samir; Bouallegue, Atef; Hamdi, Hassene; Oueslati, Foued; Amato, Alessandro; ARMIGLIATO, ALBERTO; Behrens, Joern; Davies, Gareth; Di Bucci, Daniela; Dolce, Mauro; Geist, Eric; GONZALEZ-VIDA, J.M.; Gonzalez, Mauricio; Macías, Jorge; Meletti, Carlo; Sozdinler, Ceren Ozer; Pagani, Marco; Parsons, Tom; Polet, Jascha; Power, William; Sorensen, Mathilde; Zaytsev, AndreyThe NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18) is a probabilistic hazard model for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. It covers the coastlines of the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and connected seas (NEAM). NEAMTHM18 was designed as a threephase project. The first two phases were dedicated to the model development and hazard calculations, following a formalized decision-making process based on a multiple-expert protocol. The third phase was dedicated to documentation and dissemination. The hazard assessment workflow was structured in Steps and Levels. There are four Steps: Step-1) probabilistic earthquake model; Step-2) tsunami generation and modeling in deep water; Step-3) shoaling and inundation; Step-4) hazard aggregation and uncertainty quantification. Each Step includes a different number of Levels. Level-0 always describes the input data; the other Levels describe the intermediate results needed to proceed from one Step to another. Alternative datasets and models were considered in the implementation. The epistemic hazard uncertainty was quantified through an ensemble modeling technique accounting for alternative models' weights and yielding a distribution of hazard curves represented by the mean and various percentiles. Hazard curves were calculated at 2,343 Points of Interest (P01) distributed at an average spacing of -20 km. Precalculated probability maps for five maximum inundation heights (MIH) and hazard intensity maps for five average return periods (ARP) were produced from hazard curves. In the entire NEAM Region, MIHs of several meters are rare but not impossible. Considering a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years (ARP approximate to 2,475 years), the POIs with MIH >5 m are fewer than 1% and are all in the Mediterranean on Libya, Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece coasts. In the North-East Atlantic, POIs with MIH >3 m are on the coasts of Mauritania and Gulf of Cadiz. Overall, 30% of the POIs have MIH >1 m. NEAMTHM1 8 results and documentation are available through the TSUMAPS-NEAM project website (http://www.tsumaps-neam.eu/), featuring an interactive web mapper. Although the NEAMTHM1 8 cannot substitute in-depth analyses at local scales, it represents the first action to start local and more detailed hazard and risk assessments and contributes to designing evacuation maps for tsunami early warning.