Source Models and Near-Field Impact of the 1 April 2007 Solomon Islands Tsunami

• Published in: Pure and applied geophysics Vol. 172; no. 3-4; pp. 657 - 682
• Main Authors: Wei, Yong, Fritz, Hermann M., Titov, Vasily V., Uslu, Burak, Chamberlin, Chris, Kalligeris, Nikos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel Springer Basel 01.03.2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Archipelagoes; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earthquakes; Geophysics; Geophysics/Geodesy; Inundation; Inversions; Islands; Polls & surveys; Real time; Reconstruction; Search and rescue; Searching; Seismic activity; Seismic phenomena; Tsunamis; Weather hazards; Solomon Islands; ISE, Pacific, Solomon Is; tsunameter; tsunami height; inversion; Solomon islands; South Pacific; tsunamis; near-field
• ISSN: 0033-4553; 1420-9136
• DOI: 10.1007/s00024-014-1013-6

Within weeks of the Solomon Islands earthquake of 1 April 2007, international tsunami survey teams discovered important biomarkers of crust rupture and tsunami heights along the islands’ coastlines. Deep-ocean tsunameters recorded the tsunami waves of this event, enabling a real-time inversion of the tsunami source and model evaluation of near-field tsunami impact. The survey measurements provide valuable datasets for further confirmation of the tsunami source of the 1 April 2007 Solomon earthquake. These survey results also aided investigation of the correlation between sources determined by use of tsunameter records and those derived from seismometer records or crust-rupture measurements. In this study, to assess the near-field tsunami impact, we developed tsunami inundation models for the Solomon Islands, including tsunami waveforms, co-seismic land-level changes, and tsunami height distributions on individual islands. Compared with seismic-derived tsunami sources, modeling results based on the tsunameter-derived tsunami sources were a good match with field survey measurements. These results highlight the accuracy and efficiency of the tsunameter-derived tsunami source in modeling the near-field tsunami impact along a complex archipelago. We show that the source models, although derived by use of different methods, are all suited to initiation of inundation models developed for Solomon Islands. As these source models become available in real time or near real time, they can be implemented immediately in the inundation models to provide rapid guidance on tsunami hazard assessment, focused search and rescue operations, and post-event recovery and reconstruction.