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Earthquake Scenario-Based Tsunami Wave Heights in the Eastern Mediterranean and Connected Seas

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We identified a set of tsunami scenario input parameters in a 0.5° × 0.5° uniformly gridded area in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean (both for shallow- and intermediate-depth earthquakes) and Black Seas (only shallow earthquakes) and calculated tsunami scenarios using the SWAN-Joint Research Centre (SWAN-JRC) code (Mader 2004; Annunziato 2007) with 2-arcmin resolution bathymetry data for the range of 6.5—Mwmax with an Mw increment of 0.1 at each grid in order to realize a comprehensive analysis of tsunami wave heights from earthquakes originating in the region. We defined characteristic earthquake source parameters from a compiled set of sources such as existing moment tensor catalogues and various reference studies, together with the Mwmax assigned in the literature, where possible. Results from 2,415 scenarios show that in the Eastern Mediterranean and its connected seas (Aegean and Black Sea), shallow earthquakes with Mw ≥ 6.5 may result in coastal wave heights of 0.5 m, whereas the same wave height would be expected only from intermediate-depth earthquakes with Mw ≥ 7.0 . The distribution of maximum wave heights calculated indicate that tsunami wave heights up to 1 m could be expected in the northern Aegean, whereas in the Black Sea, Cyprus, Levantine coasts, northern Libya, eastern Sicily, southern Italy, and western Greece, up to 3-m wave height could be possible. Crete, the southern Aegean, and the area between northeast Libya and Alexandria (Egypt) is prone to maximum tsunami wave heights of >3 m. Considering that calculations are performed at a minimum bathymetry depth of 20 m, these wave heights may, according to Green’s Law, be amplified by a factor of 2 at the coastline. The study can provide a basis for detailed tsunami hazard studies in the region.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC), in particular Alessandro Annunziato, for his support during the realization of the modeling database, which was possible through a collaborative agreement between the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute (KOERI) and EC-JRC. We would like to especially thank Roberto Basili [The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)] and Doğan Kalafat (KOERI) for their supports providing the SHARE active faults and seismogenic sources and KOERI Moment Tensor databases, respectively. We would also like to thank Prof. Ahmet Cevdet Yalciner for providing the earthquake source database compiled in TRANSFER Project (http://www.transferproject.eu/) and for his feedback throughout the study. We would like to thank Dr. Ceren Özer Sözdinler for her feedback and support in the quality control of the tsunami scenario database. We also would like thank Mustafa Comoglu from KOERI for his assisstance in IT-related issues concerning the tsunami scenario database and to Dr. Mehmet Yılmazer for his support in the creation of the TTT maps. Last but not least, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to two anonymous reviewers who considerably helped us in improving the manuscript. Maps are produced with Generic Mapping Tools (GMT; Wessel et al. 2013) and ArcMap 10 by Esri.

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  1. Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ocal Necmioglu & Nurcan Meral Özel

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  1. Ocal Necmioglu
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Correspondence to Ocal Necmioglu.

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Necmioglu, O., Özel, N.M. Earthquake Scenario-Based Tsunami Wave Heights in the Eastern Mediterranean and Connected Seas. Pure Appl. Geophys. 172, 3617–3638 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-015-1069-y

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