Abstract
The Makassar Strait region has had the highest frequency of historical tsunamievents for Indonesia. The strait has a seismic activity due to the convergenceof four tectonic plates that produces a complex mixture of structures. The maintsunamigenic features in the Makassar Strait are the Palu-Koro and Pasternostertransform fault zones, which form the boundaries of the Makassar trough.
Analysis of the seismicity, tectonics and historic tsunami events indicatesthat the two fault zones have different tsunami generating characteristics.The Palu-Koro fault zone involves shallow thrust earthquakes that generatetsunami that have magnitudes that are consistent with the earthquakemagnitudes. The Pasternoster fault zone involves shallower strike-slipearthquakes that produce tsunami magnitudes larger than would normallybe expected for the earthquake magnitude. The most likely cause for theincreased tsunami energy is considered to be submarine landslidesassociated with the earthquakes. Earthquakes from both fault zonesappear to cause subsidence of the west coast of Sulawesi Island.
The available data were used to construct a tsunami hazard map whichidentifies the highest risk along the west coast of Sulawesi Island.The opposite side of the Makassar Strait has a lower risk because it isfurther from the historic tsunami source regions along the Sulawesicoast, and because the continental shelf dissipates tsunami wave energy.The greatest tsunami risk for the Makassar Strait is attributed tolocally generated tsunami due to the very short travel times.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hamilton, W. B.: 1988, Plate tectonic and island arcs, Geological Society of American Bulletin 100, 1503–1527.
Hutchison, C. S.: 1990, Displaced terranes of the southwest Pacific, in B. A. Zvi (ed.), The Evolution of Pacific Ocean Margins, pp. 161–175.
Katili, J. A.: 1978, Past and present geotectonic position of Sulawesi, Indonesia, Tectonophysics 45, 289–322.
Pelinovsky, E., Yuliadi, D., Prasetya, G., and Hidayat, R.: 1996, The 1996 Sulawesi Tsunamis, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Applied Physics, Preprint No. 392, 34 p.
Prasetya, G. S.: 1997, Numerical modelling of tsunami January, 1st, 1996 in the Makassar Strait (unpublished).
Prasetya, G. S., Pelinovsky, E., and Healy, T. R.: in press, Evaluation of tsunami risk in the Makassar Strait and adjacent seas, in R. Braddock (ed.), Tsunami in Southwest Pacific, Proceeding of the IAMAS-IAPSO Conference, Melbourne July 4-9, 1997.
Puspito, N. T.: 1995, General seismological features of tsunamis in Indonesia, Proceeding Workshop on Tsunami 1995, LPTP-BPP Teknologi, Jakarta.
Puspito, N. T. and Triyoso, W.: 1994, Aspek kegempaan Tsunami di Indonesia; Suatu Tinjauan Awal, Seminar sehari masalah Tsunami di Indonesia dan aspek-aspeknya, Bandung, pp. 167–175.
Silver, E. A., McCaffrey, R., and Smith, R. B.: 1983, Collision, rotation, and the initiation of subduction in the evolution of Sulawesi, Indonesia, J. Geophysical Research 88(B11), 9407–9418.
Situmorang, B.: 1976 The Makassar trough: Regional geology and hydrocarbon prospects. CCOP 13th Session, Kuala Lumpur (unpublished).
Soloviev, S. L., Go, Ch. N., and Kim, Kh. S.: 1992, Catalogue of Tsunamis in the Pacific 1969-1982, Soviet Geophysical Committee, Moscow.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Prasetya, G.S., De Lange, W.P. & Healy, T.R. The Makassar Strait Tsunamigenic Region, Indonesia. Natural Hazards 24, 295–307 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012297413280
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012297413280