The 2010 Chile Earthquake: Rapid Assessments of Tsunami

After an earthquake underwater, rapid real-time assessment of earthquake parameters is important for emergency response related to infrastructure damage and, perhaps more exigently, for issuing warnings of the possibility of an impending tsunami. Since 2005, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) has worked on the rapid quantification of earthquake magnitude and tsunami potential, especially for the Mediterranean area. This work includes quantification of earthquake size from standard moment tensor inversion, quantification of earthquake size and tsunamigenic potential using P waveforms, and calculation of an archive of readily accessible tsunami scenarios.

Institutional fundings and INGV-DPC Convenzione 2007-2009 (S3 Project)

Lomax, A., and A. Michelini (2009a), Mwpd: A duration-amplitude procedure for rapid determination of earthquake magnitude and tsunamigenic potential from P waveforms, Geophys. J. Int., 176(1), 200–214, doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.2008.03974.x
Lomax, A., and A. Michelini (2009b), Tsunami early warning using earthquake rupture duration, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L09306, doi:10.1029/2009GL037223.
National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) (2010), NOAA/WDC tsunami event database, Boulder, Colo. (Available at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_db.shtml)