Surprising tsunami triggers may lurk off California’s coast, scientists say By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
Published: May 9, 2021, 11:00am
Share: POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE, CA - JULY 20, 2016: Clear water and deep blue sky at Tomales Bay on July 20, 2016 in Point Reyes National Seashore, California. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
LOS ANGELES Although California’s most dangerous tsunamis come from thousands of miles away, scientists say they’ve pinpointed a wave trigger that’s much closer to home. Earthquakes along strike-slip faults can cause potentially dangerous waves in certain contexts, a new model shows and such faults do exist right off parts of the Golden State’s shores.
Previously unrecognized tsunami hazard for cities like San Francisco
A new study found overlooked tsunami hazards related to undersea, near-shore strike-slip faults, especially for coastal cities adjacent to faults that traverse inland bays. Several areas around the world may fall into this category, including the San Francisco Bay area, Izmit Bay in Turkey and the Gulf of Al-Aqaba in Egypt.
The study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Ahmed Elbanna and professor Ares Rosakis of the California Institute of Technology used the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to model tsunami hazards related to strike-slip faults around the globe. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Credit: Image courtesy of Costas Synolakis
On September 28, 2018, an inexplicably large tsunami devastated the Indonesian coastal city of Palu and several others nearby. Between the tsunami and the magnitude 7.5 earthquake that caused it, some 4,340 people were killed, making it the deadliest earthquake that year.
The tsunami’s waves reached around six meters high, which was a shock to geophysicists who had believed that earthquakes along a strike-slip fault could only trigger far smaller tsunamis for that particular region. Now, new research describes a mechanism for these large tsunamis to form, and suggests that other coastal cities that were thought to be safe from massive tsunamis may need to reevaluate their level of risk.
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IMAGE: Illinois researchers Mohamed Abdelmeguid, left, and professor Ahmed Elbanna collaborated with colleagues to model and simulate previously unrecognized tsunami risks worldwide. view more
Credit: Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A new study found overlooked tsunami hazards related to undersea, near-shore strike-slip faults, especially for coastal cities adjacent to faults that traverse inland bays. Several areas around the world may fall into this category, including the San Francisco Bay area, Izmit Bay in Turkey and the Gulf of Al-Aqaba in Egypt.
The study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Ahmed Elbanna and professor Ares Rosakis of the California Institute of Technology used the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to model tsunami hazards related to strike-slip faults around the globe. The results are published in the