Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Multi-fault Model Estimation from Tsunami Data: An Application to the 2018 M7.9 Kodiak Earthquake

  • Published:
Pure and Applied Geophysics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this study, we developed a new search algorithm to find a multi-fault model of a complex earthquake using tsunami data, and applied it to the January 23, 2018 M7.9 Kodiak earthquake. Our method includes a Green’s function based time reverse imaging (GFTRI) approach to invert for sea surface displacement using tsunami waveforms, followed by inversion of the sea surface displacement for the earthquake slip distribution. The global CMT focal mechanism for this event indicates that faulting occurred on a steeply dipping fault striking either N–S (right lateral) or E–W (left lateral), while subsequent work reveals a more complex pattern of strike-slip faulting. We carried out a number of source inversions using different combinations of faults to find the model based on an extremum for residual errors. Our results suggest that the rupture occurred on at least three faults oriented in approximately N–S and E–W directions. We further explored the fault-geometry parameters by perturbing them within a range suggested by previous work. We found that the sea surface displacement model is best fit by our preferred three fault-model with the set of parameters (strike, dip, rake): (\(165^{\circ }\), \(60^{\circ }\), \(154^{\circ }\)) and (\(265^{\circ }\), \(60^{\circ }\), \(10^{\circ }\)) for N–S and E–W directions, respectively.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • An, C., Sepúlveda, I., & Liu, P. L. F. (2014). Tsunami source and its validation of the 2014 Iquique, Chile, earthquake. Geophysical Research Letters, 41(11), 3988–3994.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baba, T., Allgeyer, S., Hossen, M. J., Cummins, P. R., Tsushima, H., Imai, K., et al. (2017). Accurate numerical simulation of the far-field tsunami caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, including the effects of Boussinesq dispersion, seawater density stratification, elastic loading, and gravitational potential change. Ocean Modelling, 111, 46–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2017.01.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baba, T., & Cummins, P. R. (2005). Contiguous rupture areas of two Nankai Trough earthquakes revealed by high-resolution tsunami waveform inversion. Geophysical Research Letters, 32(8), L08305. https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL022320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gusman, A. R., Mulia, I. E., & Satake, K. (2018). Optimum sea surface displacement and fault slip distribution of the 2017 Tehuantepec earthquake (Mw 8.2) in Mexico estimated from tsunami waveforms. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(2), 646–653.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gusman, A. R., Mulia, I. E., Satake, K., Watada, S., Heidarzadeh, M., & Sheehan, A. F. (2016). Estimate of tsunami source using optimized unit sources and including dispersion effects during tsunami propagation: The 2012 Haida Gwaii earthquake. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(18), 9819–9828.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ho, T. C., Satake, K., & Watada, S. (2017). Improved phase corrections for transoceanic tsunami data in spatial and temporal source estimation: Application to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 122(12), 10–155.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hossen, M. J., Cummins, P. R., Dettmer, J., & Baba, T. (2015a). Time reverse imaging for far-field tsunami forecasting: 2011 Tohoku earthquake case study. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(22), 9906–9915.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hossen, M. J., Cummins, P. R., Dettmer, J., & Baba, T. (2015b). Tsunami waveform inversion for sea surface displacement following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake: Importance of dispersion and source kinematics. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 120(9), 6452–6473.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hossen, M. J., Cummins, P. R., Roberts, S. G., & Allgeyer, S. (2015c). Time reversal imaging of the tsunami source. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 172(3–4), 969–984.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hossen, M. J., Gusman, A., Satake, K., & Cummins, P. R. (2018). An adjoint sensitivity method applied to time reverse imaging of tsunami source for the 2009 Samoa earthquake. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(2), 627–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Korolev, Y. P. (2011). An approximate method of short-term tsunami forecast and the hindcasting of some recent events. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 11(11), 3081–3091. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-11-3081-2011. https://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/11/3081/2011/.

  • Krabbenhoeft, A., von Huene, R., Miller, J. J., Lange, D., & Vera, F. (2018). Strike-slip 23 January 2018 MW 7.9 Gulf of Alaska rare intraplate earthquake: Complex rupture of a fracture zone system. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 13706.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lay, T., Ye, L., Bai, Y., Cheung, K. F., & Kanamori, H. (2018). The 2018 MW 7.9 Gulf of Alaska earthquake: Multiple fault rupture in the Pacific plate. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(18), 9542–9551.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mulia, I. E., & Asano, T. (2016). Initial tsunami source estimation by inversion with an intelligent selection of model parameters and time delays. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 121(1), 441–456.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mulia, I. E., Gusman, A. R., Jakir, Hossen M., & Satake, K. (2018). Adaptive tsunami source inversion using optimizations and the reciprocity principle. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 123(12), 10–749.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mungov, G., Eblé, M., & Bouchard, R. (2013). DART® tsunameter retrospective and real-time data: A reflection on 10 years of processing in support of tsunami research and operations. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 170(9–10), 1369–1384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Okada, Y. (1985). Surface deformation due to shear and tensile faults in a half-space. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 75(4), 1135–1154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruppert, N., Rollins, C., Zhang, A., Meng, L., Holtkamp, S., West, M., et al. (2018). Complex faulting and triggered rupture during the 2018 MW 7.9 offshore Kodiak, Alaska, earthquake. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(15), 7533–7541.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Satake, K. (1987). Inversion of tsunami waveforms for the estimation of a fault heterogeneity: Method and numerical experiments. Journal of Physics of the Earth, 35(3), 241–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Satake, K., Fujii, Y., Harada, T., & Namegaya, Y. (2013). Time and space distribution of coseismic slip of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake as inferred from tsunami waveform data. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 103(2B), 1473–1492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weatherall, P., Marks, K. M., Jakobsson, M., Schmitt, T., Tani, S., Arndt, J. E., et al. (2015). A new digital bathymetric model of the world’s oceans. Earth and Space Science, 2(8), 331–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wei, Y., Cheung, K. F., Curtis, G. D., & McCreery, C. S. (2003). Inverse algorithm for tsunami forecasts. Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering, 129(2), 60–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yue, H., Lay, T., & Koper, K. D. (2012). En échelon and orthogonal fault ruptures of the 11 April 2012 great intraplate earthquakes. Nature, 490(7419), 245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, B., Qi, Y., Wang, D., Yu, J., Li, Q., & Zhang, C. (2018). Coseismic slip model of the 2018 M w 7.9 Gulf of Alaska earthquake and its seismic hazard implications. Seismological Research Letters, 90(2A), 642–648.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work utilized the RMACC Summit supercomputer, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards ACI-1532235 and ACI-1532236), the University of Colorado Boulder, and Colorado State University. The Summit supercomputer is a joint effort of these two universities. We thank Aaron Sweeney (NOAA) for checking Kodiak tide gauge data, Dmitry Nicolsky (University of Alaska) & Nicolas Arcos (NOAA) for providing bathymetry data covering the Alaska region and Leonardo Ramirez-Guzman (National Autonomous University of Mexico) for providing a MATLAB script for 3D plot. The first author thanks the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) for supporting this research through a postdoctoral visiting fellowship. This work was supported in part by NSF Award Number ICER 1855090.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cooperative Institute of Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    M. Jakir Hossen

  2. Department of Geological Sciences and Cooperative Institute of Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Anne F. Sheehan

  3. Earthquake Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Kenji Satake

Authors
  1. M. Jakir Hossen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Anne F. Sheehan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kenji Satake
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Jakir Hossen.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (pdf 218 KB)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hossen, M.J., Sheehan, A.F. & Satake, K. A Multi-fault Model Estimation from Tsunami Data: An Application to the 2018 M7.9 Kodiak Earthquake. Pure Appl. Geophys. 177, 1335–1346 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-020-02433-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-020-02433-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation