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The 2010 Chilean Tsunami Off the West Coast of Canada and the Northwest Coast of the United States

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Abstract

The major (M w = 8.8) Chilean earthquake of 27 February 2010 generated a trans-oceanic tsunami that was observed throughout the Pacific Ocean. Waves associated with this event had features similar to those of the 1960 tsunami generated in the same region by the Great (M w = 9.5) 1960 Chilean Earthquake. Both tsunamis were clearly observed on the coast of British Columbia. The 1960 tsunami was measured by 17 analog pen-and-paper tide gauges, while the 2010 tsunami was measured by 11 modern digital coastal tide gauges, four NEPTUNE-Canada bottom pressure recorders located offshore from southern Vancouver Island, and two nearby open-ocean DART stations. The 2010 records were augmented by data from seven NOAA tide gauges on the coast of Washington State. This study examines the principal characteristics of the waves from the 2010 event (height, period, duration, and arrival and travel times) and compares these properties for the west coast of Canada with corresponding properties of the 1960 tsunami. Results show that the 2010 waves were approximately 3.5 times smaller than the 1960 waves and reached the British Columbia coast 1 h earlier. The maximum 2010 wave heights were observed at Port Alberni (98.4 cm) and Winter Harbour (68.3 cm); the observed periods ranged from 12 min at Port Hardy to 110–120 min at Prince Rupert and Port Alberni and 150 min at Bamfield. The open-ocean records had maximum wave heights of 6–11 cm and typical periods of 7 and 15 min. Coastal and open-ocean tsunami records revealed persistent oscillations that “rang” for 3–4 days. Tsunami energy occupied a broad band of periods from 3 to 300 min. Estimation of the inverse celerity vectors from cross-correlation analysis of the deep-sea tsunami records shows that the tsunami waves underwent refraction as they approached the coast of Vancouver Island with the direction of the incoming waves changing from an initial direction of 340° True to a direction of 15° True for the second train of waves that arrived 7 h later after possible reflection from the Marquesas and Hawaiian islands.

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Notes

  1. There is a difference between the 1960 tsunami parameters presented by Wigen (1960) for the B.C. coast and by Lander et al. (1993) for the US coast; whereas Wigen (1960) gives maximum trough-to-crest (or crest-to-trough) wave heights, Lander et al. (1993) estimate maximum mean sea level-to-crest wave amplitudes (i.e., values that are roughly two times smaller). This difference was the cause of confusion when we began to compare the characteristics of the 1960 and 2010 tsunamis in these regions.

  2. This train of waves corresponds with the first arrival of Rayleigh waves (R1) propagating along the minor arc, ΔL 1. The second arrival (R2) at approximately 08:47 UTC, was associated with waves propagating in the opposite direction along the major arc (cf. Oki 2010), ΔL 2 = 360–97 = 263 arc degrees. The R2 waves were much weaker and only slightly above the ambient noise level.

  3. A shorter background period for the NEPTUNE stations was due to some technical problems and gaps during the preceding period (23–25 February 2010).

  4. DART and NEPTUNE stations had sampling intervals Δ t = 15 s; thus the spectral window for these stations involved 2,048 samples.

  5. The resonant (eigen) characteristics of each site are always the same; however, different sources induce different eigen modes. Specifically, large seismic sources (like 1960 Chile, 1964 Alaska, 2004 Sumatra and 2010 Chile) generate low-frequency modes, while small seismic sources (e.g., 2006 and 2007 Kuril Islands or 2009 Samoa) generate high-frequency modes.

  6. We qualify this by noting that the “source function” can be indicative not only of the initial seismic source but also of secondary remote sources associated with open ocean tsunami wave scattering and reflection.

  7. The original 15-s records were low-pass filtered with 2-min KB-window and decimated to 1 min.

  8. In fact, they are not triangles but quadrangles, but two stations, 1027-S and ODP CORK 1026b, are located at almost the same vertex. Using both stations in our analyses increased the degrees of freedom and improved the confidence levels for evaluated vector characteristics.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge Denny Sinnott and Neil Sutherland of the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) (Sidney, British Columbia) for helping assemble and verify the CHS tide gauge data, Martin Heesemann of NEPTUNE-Canada (University of Victoria, British Columbia) for providing the NEPTUNE-Canada data, and George Mungov of the National Geophysical Data Center (Boulder, Colorado) for helping with the DART data. We further acknowledge Garry Rogers and Taimi Mulder from the Pacific Geoscience Centre (PGC) (Sidney, British Columbia) for assisting us with the seismic wave analysis. Alexei Ivashchenko from the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (Moscow, Russia) significantly helped us with specific questions related to the 1960 and 2010 Chilean earthquake sources. We also thank Patricia Kimber of Tango Design (Sidney, BC) for drafting the figures.

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  1. Ocean Sciences Division, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Institute of Ocean Sciences, 9860 West Saanich Road, Sidney, BC, V8L 4B2, Canada

    Alexander B. Rabinovich, Richard E. Thomson & Isaac V. Fine

  2. Russian Academy of Sciences, P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, 36 Nakhimovsky Prosp., Moscow, 117997, Russia

    Alexander B. Rabinovich

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  1. Alexander B. Rabinovich
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Rabinovich, A.B., Thomson, R.E. & Fine, I.V. The 2010 Chilean Tsunami Off the West Coast of Canada and the Northwest Coast of the United States. Pure Appl. Geophys. 170, 1529–1565 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-012-0541-1

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