IASPEI - Picture Gallery

IUGG XXIV General Assembly July 2-13, 2007 Perugia, Italy
(S) - IASPEI - International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's
Interior
JSS002 Poster presentation 1827
Tsunami hazard estimation for the southern Kuril Island coast
Dr. Victor Kaystrenko
Russian Academy of sciences Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics
The Russian Far Eastern coast is a one of the most tectonically active margin of the Pacific area with
frequent tsunami occurrence. After catastrophic tsunami in November 1952 that destroyed the most
part of the Severo-Kurilsk town, up till now more than 40 tsunami were recorded on the Far East coast
of our country, the height being more than 5 meters in 7 cases, and in 1952, 1963, 1969, 1994 the
wave heights being up to 15 meters in some points. Tsunami hazard distribution along the Russian
coast is not homogeneous and tsunamis are most frequent events on the Southern Kuril Island coast. It
is known that a sequence of earthquakes exceeding an elected magnitude is really the Poissonian one
and its main parameter is the recurrence functionF (h0) which is a mean frequency of tsunamis with
height more then elected "threshold" h0. Analysis of the natural data showed that this function depends
from two parameters: F(h0) = f exp ( -h0/H*). Parameter H* is calibrate (characteristic) tsunami height
depended from the coastal point of tsunami observation, and f is the regional tsunami frequency, that
varying very slowly along the Pacific coast and can be considered as a regional constant. Using the least
square method these parameters have been calculated from the historical tsunami data set. Finally,
characteristic tsunami heights H* were evaluated for 18 points on the Southern Kuril Island coast.
Tsunami frequency for this region is f = 0.17 1/year and its standard deviation is σ(ln(f) = 0.13. These
parameter allowed to estimate tsunami risk for this region. The work was supported by the grants of
the Russian Foundation of Basic Research 05-05-64733 andFEB RAS I # 06-I-ON3-106.
Keywords: tsunami, hazard, risk