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Ongoing Work by a Powell Center Working Group on Tsunami Sources for Hazards Mitigation in the United States

Description: 

Members of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program and other researchers have convened a multidisciplinary working group on tsunami sources, partially supported by the USGS Powell Center. The goal is to define and implement a transparent and scientifically-based methodology and evaluation process for characterizing historical and realistic hypothetical sources of tsunamis that pose a potential hazard to U.S. populations, commerce, and infrastructure. Using a logic tree process, and including regional experts, the working group is synthesizing existing peer reviewed geological and geophysical knowledge of submarine earthquake faults and coastal landslide sources to produce a database of source models for use in creating hazards assessments for risk reduction. The vehicle is a series of collaborative working meetings at the Powell Center, followed by additional work to complete the logic trees.

The first week-long meeting, in April 2018, adopted a probabilistic evaluation process where possible. Ensuing meetings, with reports underway, focused on Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone tsunami sources, Cascadia subduction zone tsunami sources, and tsunami sources that impact the U.S. East Coast, Gulf Coast, and Caribbean Territories. A meeting on Pacific tsunami sources, other than the Cascadia and Alaska-Aleutian subduction zones, is scheduled for March 2023, and will include a discussion of volcanic tsunami sources. Lessons learned from developing the logic tree for Alaska-Aleutian tsunami sources have been applied to developing logic trees for the other regions. Results and discussions from the meetings are being used to understand and help fill knowledge gaps within the earthquake and tsunami modeling communities.

Session: The Future of Tsunami Science, Preparedness and Response [Poster]

Type: Poster

Date: 4/19/2023

Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: Jason R. Patton

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors