PacificTWC | Thrust vs. Strike-Slip Mechanisms in PTWC's Tsunami Forecast Model @PacificTWC | Uploaded 11 years ago | Updated 1 hour ago
On April 11, 2012, PTWC scientists responded to a pair of very unusual earthquakes, 8.6 and 8.2 magnitude strike-slip events, the largest of this type ever recorded. They did not know the quakes were strike-slip at first, and due to their large size they assumed the worst-case scenario: thrust-type earthquakes that could generate dangerous tsunamis. Therefore they put the Indian Ocean in a Tsunami Watch status. But in less than an hour they figured out the strike-slip nature of the quakes and that they were less likely to generate tsunamis, and when their instruments confirmed that the quakes did not generate tsunamis they canceled the Tsunami Watch.
PTWC scientists and their colleagues later wrote a paper about this event, "Real-time Forecasting of the April 11, 2012 Sumatra Tsunami," published in Geophysical Research Letters:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL053081.shtml
As they describe in their paper, this related animation shows a tsunami forecast based on the initial, incorrect thrust mechanism assumption alongside a tsunami forecast based on the best-available strike-slip mechanisms from the Global Centroid Moment Tensor Project (http://www.globalcmt.org).
On April 11, 2012, PTWC scientists responded to a pair of very unusual earthquakes, 8.6 and 8.2 magnitude strike-slip events, the largest of this type ever recorded. They did not know the quakes were strike-slip at first, and due to their large size they assumed the worst-case scenario: thrust-type earthquakes that could generate dangerous tsunamis. Therefore they put the Indian Ocean in a Tsunami Watch status. But in less than an hour they figured out the strike-slip nature of the quakes and that they were less likely to generate tsunamis, and when their instruments confirmed that the quakes did not generate tsunamis they canceled the Tsunami Watch.
PTWC scientists and their colleagues later wrote a paper about this event, "Real-time Forecasting of the April 11, 2012 Sumatra Tsunami," published in Geophysical Research Letters:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL053081.shtml
As they describe in their paper, this related animation shows a tsunami forecast based on the initial, incorrect thrust mechanism assumption alongside a tsunami forecast based on the best-available strike-slip mechanisms from the Global Centroid Moment Tensor Project (http://www.globalcmt.org).
