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Special issue EPOS a Research Infrastructure in solid Earth: open science and innovation .-- 21 pages, 8 figures, Tsunamis constitute a significant hazard for European coastal populations, and the impact of tsunami events worldwide can extend well beyond the coastal regions directly affected. Understanding the complex mechanisms of tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation, as well as managing the tsunami risk, requires multidisciplinary research and infrastructures that cross national boundaries. Recent decades have seen both great advances in tsunami science and consolidation of the European tsunami research community. A recurring theme has been the need for a sustainable platform for coordinated tsunami community activities and a hub for tsunami services. Following about three years of preparation, in July 2021, the European tsunami community attained the status of Candidate Thematic Core Service (cTCS) within the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) Research Infrastructure. Within a transition period of three years, the Tsunami candidate TCS is anticipated to develop into a fully operational EPOS TCS. We here outline the path taken to reach this point, and the envisaged form of the future EPOS TCS Tsunami. Our cTCS is planned to be organised within four thematic pillars: (1) Support to Tsunami Service Providers, (2) Tsunami Data, (3) Numerical Models, and (4) Hazard and Risk Products. We outline how identified needs in tsunami science and tsunami risk mitigation will be addressed within this structure and how participation within EPOS will become an integration point for community development, With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S)

Forecasting and early warning systems are important investments to protect lives, properties and livelihood. While early warning systems are frequently used to predict the magnitude, location and timing of potentially damaging events, these systems rarely provide impact estimates, such as the expected amount and distribution of physical damage, human consequences, disruption of services or financial loss. Complementing early warning systems with impact forecasts has a two‐fold advantage: it would provide decision makers with richer information to take informed decisions about emergency measures, and focus the attention of different disciplines on a common target. This would allow capitalizing on synergies between different disciplines and boosting the development of multi‐hazard early warning systems. This review discusses the state‐of‐the‐art in impact forecasting for a wide range of natural hazards. We outline the added value of impact‐based warnings compared to hazard forecasting for the emergency phase, indicate challenges and pitfalls, and synthesize the review results across hazard types most relevant for Europe. Plain language summary Forecasting and early warning systems are important investments to protect lives, properties and livelihood. While such systems are frequently used to predict the magnitude, location and timing of potentially damaging events, they rarely provide impact estimates, such as the expected physical damage, human consequences, disruption of services or financial loss. Extending hazard forecast systems to include impact estimates promises many benefits for the emergency phase, for instance, for organising evacuations. We review and compare the state‐of‐the‐art of impact forcasting across a wide range of natural hazards, and outline opportunities and key challenges for research and development of impact forecasting.

Regional and global tsunami hazard analysis requires simplified and efficient methods for estimating the tsunami inundation height and its related uncertainty. One such approach is the amplification factor (AF) method. Amplification factors describe the relation between offshore wave height and the maximum inundation height, as predicted by linearized plane wave models employed for incident waves with different wave characteristics. In this study, a new amplification factor method is developed that takes into account the offshore bathymetry proximal to the coastal site. The present AFs cover the North-Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean (NEAM) region. The model is the first general approximate model that quantifies inundation height uncertainty. Uncertainty quantification is carried out by analyzing the inundation height variability in more than 500 high-resolution inundation simulations at six different coastal sites. The inundation simulations are undertaken with different earthquake sources in order to produce different wave period and polarity. We show that the probability density of the maximum inundation height can be modeled with a log-normal distribution, whose median is quite well predicted by the AF. It is further demonstrated that the associated maximum inundation height uncertainties are significant and must be accounted for in tsunami hazard analysis. The application to the recently developed TSUMAPS-NEAM probabilistic tsunami hazard analysis (PTHA) is presented as a use case.

Subduction systems globally terminate, allowing plate-motion to be transferred from the oceanic megathrust onto continental and/or oceanic transform faults. The mechanism of this kinematic transition over earthquake timescales is, however, poorly understood due to a lack of relevant data. Here, we study the 2016 Mw 7.8 Kaikōura Earthquake in New Zealand, the first large instrumentally-recorded earthquake across a subduction-termination, to investigate this transfer mechanism in detail. We find that the Kaikōura Earthquake, unlike standard subduction earthquakes globally, involved a predominance (∼80%) of coseismic-slip on upper-plate faults and minor triggered-slip on the underlying oceanic subduction-thrust. In the months following the earthquake, the subduction-thrust accommodated most of the earthquake's afterslip down-dip of its co-seismic rupture zone. This top-down strain-release mechanism is in accord with local geological, geodetic and historical seismicity data which suggest that the bulk of plate-convergence (>75%) is accommodated in the upper-plate. We suggest, therefore, that this alternative strain-release mechanism, which is distinct from standard plate-boundary earthquakes, is characteristic of subduction-terminations and results in the majority of seismic/tsunami hazard being on steep near-surface faults.

Applying probabilistic methods to infrequent but devastating natural events is intrinsically challenging. For tsunami analyses, a suite of geophysical assessments should be in principle evaluated because of the different causes generating tsunamis (earthquakes, landslides, volcanic activity, meteorological events, and asteroid impacts) with varying mean recurrence rates. Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Analyses (PTHAs) are conducted in different areas of the world at global, regional, and local scales with the aim of understanding tsunami hazard to inform tsunami risk reduction activities. PTHAs enhance knowledge of the potential tsunamigenic threat by estimating the probability of exceeding specific levels of tsunami intensity metrics (e.g., run-up or maximum inundation heights) within a certain period of time (exposure time) at given locations (target sites); these estimates can be summarized in hazard maps or hazard curves. This discussion presents a broad overview of PTHA, including (i) sources and mechanisms of tsunami generation, emphasizing the variety and complexity of the tsunami sources and their generation mechanisms, (ii) developments in modeling the propagation and impact of tsunami waves, and (iii) statistical procedures for tsunami hazard estimates that include the associated epistemic and aleatoric uncertainties. Key elements in understanding the potential tsunami hazard are discussed, in light of the rapid development of PTHA methods during the last decade and the globally distributed applications, including the importance of considering multiple sources, their relative intensities, probabilities of occurrence, and uncertainties in an integrated and consistent probabilistic framework.

This study reports on recent developments of the Indonesia Tsunami Early Warning System (InaTEWS), specifically the tsunami modeling components used in the system. It is a dual system: firstly, InaTEWS operates a high-resolution scenario database pre-computed with the finite element model TsunAWI; running in parallel, the system also contains a supra real-time modeling component based on the GPU-parallelized linear long-wave model easyWave, capable of dealing with events outside the database coverage. The evolution of the tsunami scenario database over time is covered in the first sections also touching on the involved capacity building efforts. Starting with a coverage of just the Sunda Arc region, the database now includes scenarios for 15 fault zones. The study is augmented by an investigation of warning products used for early warning; the estimated wave height (EWH) and the estimated time of arrival (ETA). These parameters are determined by easyWave and TsunAWI with model specific approaches. Since the numerical setup of the two models is very different, the extent of variations in warning products is investigated for a number of scenarios, where both pure database scenarios and applications to real events are considered. Finally, the performance of the system in past tsunami events is reviewed to point out major system updates.

Historical data indicate that the Middle America subduction zone represents the primary tsunamigenic source that affects the Central American coastal areas. In recent years, the tsunami potential in the region has mainly been assessed using maximum credible earthquakes or historical events showing moderate tsunami potential. However, such deterministic scenarios are not provided with their adequate probability of occurrence. In this study, earthquake rates have been combined with tsunami numerical modeling in order to assess probabilistic tsunami hazard posed by local and regional seismic sources. The common conceptual framework for the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment has been adapted to estimate the probabilities of exceeding certain tsunami amplitudes along the Central American Pacific coast. The study area encompasses seismic sources related to the Central America, Colombia and Ecuador subduction zones. In addition to the classical subduction inter-plate events, this study also incorporates sources at the outer rise, within the Caribbean crust as well as intra-slab sources. The study yields conclusive remarks showing that the highest hazard is posed to northwestern Costa Rica, El Salvador and the Nicaraguan coast, southern Colombia and northern Ecuador. In most of the region it is 50 to 80% likely that the tsunami heights will exceed 2 m for the 500 year time exposure (T). The lowest hazard appears to be in the inner part of the Fonseca Gulf, Honduras. We also show the large dependence of PTHA on model assumptions. While the approach taken in this study represents a thorough step forward in tsunami hazard assessment in the region, we also highlight that the integration of all possible uncertainties will be necessary to generate rigorous hazard models required for risk planning.

Flank instability and sector collapses, which pose major threats, are common on volcanic islands. On 22 Dec 2018, a sector collapse event occurred at Anak Krakatau volcano in the Sunda Strait, triggering a deadly tsunami. Here we use multiparametric ground-based and space-borne data to show that prior to its collapse, the volcano exhibited an elevated state of activity, including precursory thermal anomalies, an increase in the island’s surface area, and a gradual seaward motion of its southwestern flank on a dipping décollement. Two minutes after a small earthquake, seismic signals characterize the collapse of the volcano’s flank at 13:55 UTC. This sector collapse decapitated the cone-shaped edifice and triggered a tsunami that caused 430 fatalities. We discuss the nature of the precursor processes underpinning the collapse that culminated in a complex hazard cascade with important implications for the early detection of potential flank instability at other volcanoes., On 22 December 2018, the western flank of Anak Krakatau collapsed into the sea of the Sunda Strait triggering a tsunami which killed approximately 430 people and displaced 33,000. Here, the authors show that Anak Krakatau exhibited an elevated state of activity several months prior to the collapse, including precursory thermal anomalies, an increase in the island’s surface area, and a gradual seaward motion of the southwestern flank.

SUMMARY The various uncertainties in the earthquake-triggered tsunami threat assessment are difficult to quantify and/or integrate into the tsunami early warning process. Uncertainties in the (seismic) input parameters and the lack of knowledge about the earthquake slip distribution contribute most to the total uncertainty in real-time evaluated tsunami assessment. We present a method how to integrate and quantify these uncertainties in the warning process by evaluating a tsunami warning level probability distribution with a Bayesian network (BN) approach. As soon as an earthquake is detected, the seismic source parameter estimates are evaluated and a probabilistic overview on different tsunami warning levels is provided, feasible to support a decision maker at a warning center with important additional data. A BN system has been developed exemplarily for the region Sumatra. In this paper, we describe the method of BN generation by ancestral sampling, we critically analyse the assumptions made and weight the pro and cons of the BN approach. A case study demonstrates the workflow of the BN system in real-time and reveals the promising power of a BN analysis in the framework of early warning.

On 16 September 2015, the M-W = 8.2 Illapel megathrust earthquake ruptured the Central Chilean margin. Combining inversions of displacement measurements and seismic waveforms with high frequency (HF) teleseismic backprojection, we derive a comprehensive description of the rupture, which also predicts deep ocean tsunami wave heights. We further determine moment tensors and obtain accurate depth estimates for the aftershock sequence. The earthquake nucleated near the coast but then propagated to the north and updip, attaining a peak slip of 5-6 m. In contrast, HF seismic radiation is mostly emitted downdip of the region of intense slip and arrests earlier than the long period rupture, indicating smooth slip along the shallow plate interface in the final phase. A superficially similar earthquake in 1943 with a similar aftershock zone had a much shorter source time function, which matches the duration of HF seismic radiation in the recent event, indicating that the 1943 event lacked the shallow slip.

Nowadays, Global Positioning System (GPS) plays an increasingly important role in retrieving real-time precise co-seismic displacements for geo-hazard monitoring and early warning. Several real-time positioning approaches have been demonstrated for such purpose, such as real-time kinematic relative positioning, precise point positioning, etc., where dual-frequency geodetic receivers are applied for the removal of ionosphere delays by inter-frequency combination. At the same time, it would be also useful to develop efficient algorithms for estimating precise displacements with low-cost GPS receivers since they can make a denser network or multi-sensors combination without putting too much financial burden. In this contribution, we present a new method to retrieve precise co-seismic displacements in real-time using a standalone single-frequency receiver. In the new method, observations prior to an earthquake are utilized to establish a precise ionospheric delay prediction model, so that precise co-seismic displacements can be obtained without any convergence process. Our method was validated with an outdoor experiment as well as by re-processing of 1-Hz GPS data collected by the GEONET network during the 2011 Tohoku Mw 9.0 earthquake. For the latter, RMS against dual-frequency receivers constituted 2 cm for horizontal components and 3 cm for the vertical component. We specially address the observation biases and their impact on the accuracy of single frequency positioning. Our approach makes real-time GPS displacement monitoring with dense network much more affordable in terms of financial costs.

[1] Estimating the occurrence probability of natural disasters is critical for setting construction standards and, more generally, prioritizing risk mitigation efforts. Tsunami hazard in the Mediterranean region has traditionally been estimated by considering so-called “most credible” scenarios of tsunami impact for limited geographical regions, but little attention has been paid to the probability of any given scenario. We present here the first probabilistic estimate of earthquake-generated tsunami hazard for the entire Mediterranean Sea. We estimate the annual probability of exceeding a given tsunami amplitude at any coastal location in the region by applying a Monte Carlo based technique. Earthquake activity rates are estimated from the observed seismicity, and tsunami impact is derived from deterministic tsunami wave propagation scenarios. The highest hazard is in the eastern Mediterranean owing to earthquakes along the Hellenic Arc, but most of the Mediterranean coastline is prone to tsunami impact. Our method allows us to identify the main sources of tsunami hazard at any given location and to investigate the potential for issuing timely tsunami warnings. We find that the probability of a tsunami wave exceeding 1 m somewhere in the Mediterranean in the next 30 years is close to 100%. This underlines the urgent need for a tsunami warning system in the region.

We use the technique of direct minimization of the Gibbs free energy of the 8-component (K2O-Na2O-Fe2O3-FeO-CaO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2) multiphase system in order to determine the equilibrium mineral assemblages of rocks of different bulk chemical compositions equilibrated at various P-T conditions. The calculated modal compositions of rocks and experimental data on elastic moduli of single crystals are then used to calculate densities and isotropic elastic wave velocities of rocks together with their pressure and temperature derivatives. Sufficient accuracy of the calculations is confirmed by comparison with experimental data on the gabbro-eclogite transformation and precise ultrasonic measurements of elastic wave velocities in a number of magmatic and metamorphic rocks. We present calculated phase diagrams with isolines of density, elastic wave velocities, and their pressure and temperature derivatives for several anhydrous magmatic rocks, from granite to lherzolite. Density and elastic properties of rocks are controlled by their chemical compositions, especially the SiO2 content, and by P-T of equilibration, and they increase with pressure due to mineral reactions changing mineral assemblages from plagioclase-bearing and garnet-free to garnetbearing and plagioclase-free. TheV p -density correlation is high, and shows two clear trends: one for iron-poor ultramafic rocks and another for all the other rocks considered. Mineral reactions, which occur at high pressures, changeV p and density of anhydrous magmatic rocks following the well-known Birch (or a similar) law. Felsic, intermediate and mafic rocks can be well distinguished in theV p -V p /V s - diagram, although their values ofV p can be close to one another. TheV p -V p /V s -density diagrams together with calculated phase diagrams can serve as efficient instruments for petrologic interpretation of seismic velocities.

[1] Large submarine landslides can generate dangerous tsunamis. Because of their long-period signal, detection of landslides by common seismological methods is difficult. Here we suggest a method of detecting submarine landslides by using an array of land-based tiltmeters. The displacement of a large volume of sediments during landsliding produces a detectable elastic response of the lithosphere. We propose a technique to calculate this response and to invert for tsunami relevant parameters like slide location, volume, and velocity. We exemplify our method by applying it to the Storegga slide west of Norway and other tsunamigenic landslide events. The parameter which can be most robustly estimated from tiltmeter array measurements is the product of slide volume and its velocity (slide tsunamigenic potential). This parameter also controls the amplitude of the generated tsunami wave. The inversion accuracy of this parameter and the estimated tsunami height near the coast depends on the noise level of tiltmeter measurements, distance of the tiltmeters from the slide, and slide tsunamigenic potential itself. The tsunamigenic potential of the most dangerous slides like Storegga can be estimated well by tiltmeters at the coast if the effective noise level does not exceed 50 nrad.

Fault zones are the locations where motion of tectonic plates, often associated with earthquakes, is accommodated. Despite a rapid increase in the understanding of faults in the last decades, our knowledge of their geometry, petrophysical properties, and controlling processes remains incomplete. The central questions addressed here in our study of the Dead Sea Transform (DST) in the Middle East are as follows: (1) What are the structure and kinematics of a large fault zone? (2) What controls its structure and kinematics? (3) How does the DST compare to other plate boundary fault zones? The DST has accommodated a total of 105 km of left-lateral transform motion between the African and Arabian plates since early Miocene (similar to 20 Ma). The DST segment between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, called the Arava/Araba Fault (AF), is studied here using a multidisciplinary and multiscale approach from the mu m to the plate tectonic scale. We observe that under the DST a narrow, subvertical zone cuts through crust and lithosphere. First, from west to east the crustal thickness increases smoothly from 26 to 39 km, and a subhorizontal lower crustal reflector is detected east of the AF. Second, several faults exist in the upper crust in a 40 km wide zone centered on the AF, but none have kilometer-size zones of decreased seismic velocities or zones of high electrical conductivities in the upper crust expected for large damage zones. Third, the AF is the main branch of the DST system, even though it has accommodated only a part (up to 60 km) of the overall 105 km of sinistral plate motion. Fourth, the AF acts as a barrier to fluids to a depth of 4 km, and the lithology changes abruptly across it. Fifth, in the top few hundred meters of the AF a locally transpressional regime is observed in a 100-300 m wide zone of deformed and displaced material, bordered by subparallel faults forming a positive flower structure. Other segments of the AF have a transtensional character with small pull-aparts along them. The damage zones of the individual faults are only 5-20 m wide at this depth range. Sixth, two areas on the AF show mesoscale to microscale faulting and veining in limestone sequences with faulting depths between 2 and 5 km. Seventh, fluids in the AF are carried downward into the fault zone. Only a minor fraction of fluids is derived from ascending hydrothermal fluids. However, we found that on the kilometer scale the AF does not act as an important fluid conduit. Most of these findings are corroborated using thermomechanical modeling where shear deformation in the upper crust is localized in one or two major faults; at larger depth, shear deformation occurs in a 20-40 km wide zone with a mechanically weak decoupling zone extending subvertically through the entire lithosphere.

[1] Since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2004 offshore Sumatra, many source models have been put forward. Recent studies clearly show that modern GPS-processing could achieve high resolving power for slip in near real time, which is crucial for determining tsunami initial conditions, provided accurate GPS-processing and inversion. Here, we propose an inversion technique with improved representation of the subduction zone geometry and physically justified boundary conditions. We show that the discrepancy between the inversion of near- and far field GPS data for the 2004 event, which is often explained by postseismic slip, can be eliminated by using our inversion method and IASP91 earth model. Inverted source models, including versions with splay faulting, are shown to be consistent with satellite altimetry data of offshore tsunami wave height, suggesting that displacement at the splay fault might have been present but was likely a second order process.

[1] The 2004 catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami has strongly emphasized the need for reliable tsunami early warning systems. Another giant tsunamigenic earthquake may occur west of Sumatra, close to the large city of Padang. We demonstrate that the presence of islands between the trench and the Sumatran coast makes earthquake-induced tsunamis especially sensitive to slip distribution on the rupture plane as wave heights at Padang may differ by more than a factor of 5 for earthquakes having the same seismic moment (magnitude) and rupture zone geometry but different slip distribution. Hence reliable prediction of tsunami wave heights for Padang cannot be provided using traditional, earthquake-magnitude-based methods. We show, however, that such a prediction can be issued within 10 minutes of an earthquake by incorporating special types of near-field GPS arrays (‘‘GPS-Shield’’). These arrays measure both vertical and horizontal displacements and can resolve higher order features of the slip distribution on the fault than the seismic moment if placed above the rupture zone or are less than 100 km away of the rupture zone. Stations in the arrays are located as close as possible to the trench and are aligned perpendicular to the trench, i.e., parallel to the expected gradient of surface coseismic displacement. In the case of Sumatra and Java, the GPS-Shield arrays should be placed at Mentawai Islands, located between the trench and Sumatra and directly at the Sumatra and Java western coasts. We demonstrate that the ‘‘GPS-Shield’’ can also be applied to northern Chile, where giant earthquakes may also occur in the near future. Moreover, this concept may be applied globally to many other tsunamigenic active margins where the land is located above or close to seismogenic zones.

We present a set of self-consistent numerical experiments resulting in the development of local weak zones within a wide region of extending brittle lithosphere overlying viscous asthenosphere. In these two-dimensional models, the brittle yield strength is controlled by a Byerlee's Law friction coefficient and a value for cohesion. A portion of the brittle strength is reduced as a function of plastic strain (strain beyond yield). This strain weakening can result in concentration of strain on spontaneously formed weak zones accommodating dip slip, or model normal faults. The temperature-dependent viscous rheology is based on a laboratory-derived power-law creep flow law for diabase. The initial temperature gradient is taken to be linear with depth, and controls the depth range over which the viscosity decreases beneath the brittle lithosphere. The viscous flow of the transition region below the lithosphere can result in a distributed set of model normal faults, in some cases with regular periodic spacing. ...

In the deep crust, temperature, which is among the key pa- rameters controlling lithospheric dynamics, is inferred by extrap- olation from the surface using several assumptions that may fail in regions of active tectonics and fluid migration. In the rare case that temperatures of 700 8C or higher are exceeded in the upper and middle continental crust composed of quartz-rich felsic rocks, the a-b quartz transition (ABQT) will occur, generating a mea- surable seismic signature and offering the possibility for precisely estimating temperature from the known ABQT phase diagram. Here it is shown that all expected seismic features of the ABQT are met by the boundary between the upper and middle crust be- low the INDEPTH III profile in central Tibet. This finding implies that a temperature of 700 8C is achieved at a depth of 18 km under the southern Qiangtang block, which agrees with the depth to the top of a high electrical conductivity anomaly, likely representing partially melted crust. To the south in the northern Lhasa block, the ABQT is at 32 km depth, corresponding to a temperature of 800 8C. It thus appears that this seismic boundary representing the ABQT is the result of recent geologic processes rather than being a lithologic boundary.

Tsunami warning centres face the challenging task of rapidly forecasting tsunami threat immediately after an earthquake, when there is high uncertainty due to data deficiency. Here we introduce Probabilistic Tsunami Forecasting (PTF) for tsunami early warning. PTF explicitly treats data- and forecast-uncertainties, enabling alert level definitions according to any predefined level of conservatism, which is connected to the average balance of missed-vs-false-alarms. Impact forecasts and resulting recommendations become progressively less uncertain as new data become available. Here we report an implementation for near-source early warning and test it systematically by hindcasting the great 2010 M8.8 Maule (Chile) and the well-studied 2003 M6.8 Zemmouri-Boumerdes (Algeria) tsunamis, as well as all the Mediterranean earthquakes that triggered alert messages at the Italian Tsunami Warning Centre since its inception in 2015, demonstrating forecasting accuracy over a wide range of magnitudes and earthquake types., Probabilistic tsunami forecasting (PTF) defines an approach to tsunami early warning based on uncertainty quantification, enhancing forecast accuracy and enabling rational decision making. PTF is here developed for near-source tsunami warning, and tested in hindcasting mode over a wide range of past earthquakes.