Tsunami simultation of the 2010 Mentawai earthquake

Sougato Chowdhury, IISER Pune

Abstract

Computer simulation of the 2010 Mentawai earthquake and tsunami was performed using JAGURS.
The seafloor displacement (and corresponding water surface displacement) was calculated by
assuming a single fault model. A finite difference method with a staggered grid scheme was used for
the numerical computation. Finally, the calculated waveforms were compared with the observed
waveforms from tidal gauge data. The conclusion was that a multi-fault model would be more
suitable for simulating the tsunami.

1.Introduction
An earthquake of moment magnitude 7.8 star.
occurred off the west coast of the Sumatra,
on 25 October 2010, at 14:42 UTC, with
epicenter at 3.487 °S, 100.082 °E at a depth of
20.1 km according to USGS survey, resulting in
a tsunami that afflicted the Mentawai islands.
It was a tsunami earthquake and caused
approximately 408 deaths and 303 people to
be missing from the various nearby islands.

The Mentawai earthquake occurred at the

interface of the subducting Australian plate
and the overlying Sunda plate. Seismic activity
for one year before and one month after the
earthquake has been shown in the figure. The
main shock has been marked with a yellow

Figure 1. Only foreshocks and aftershocks with

2. Numerical Computation Process
The tsunami generation and propagation was
simulated via the following steps-
Estimating fault parameters
Calculating sea-floor displacement
Obtaining water –surface
displacement
Numerical computation of tsunami
wave
magnitudes > 5 have been marked. (25 October 2009-
25 November 2010).
There are nine fault parameters that need to
be considered before the seafloor
displacement can be calculated. They are the
location ( latitude, longitude and depth),
geometry ( strike, slip and rake), size ( length
and width) and the average slip. Everything
apart from the last three was obtained from
the USGS W-phase moment solution.
The length and the width of the fault can be 4-5 km whereas source area of an earthquake
estimated from the aftershock distribution, may range from ten to hundreds of
using trial and error methods. The average
slip µ can then be obtained from the formula,

M = µ(L*W) û
Where M is the seismic moment and û is the
rigidity of the medium.

Latitude/Longitude 3.487 °S, 100.082 °E

Strike,Dip,Rake 316°, 8°, 96°
Length 210 km
Width 60 km
Depth 20.1 km
Average Slip 2.64 m
Seismic Moment 5.405e+20 N-m
(Values obtained from USGS survey)

Okada’s model for surface displacements due

to inclined fault in a half-space for a finite
rectangular source was used to calculate the
sea-floor displacement from the above fault
parameters ( A better estimation of depth
was obtained from the Harvard CMT
catalogue, with the value being approximately
12 km). kilometers).

The picture alongside shows the displacement
obtained from the fault parameters. Red lines
represent uplift and blue lines represent
subsidence of the sea-floor. The lines are
spaced at intervals of 10 cm and we can see
that there is steeper uplift as compared to
subsidence. The yellow rectangle represents
the fault.
Next, we use this approximation and ignore
non-linear terms ( advection,Coriolis force
and bottom friction) to obtain the following
governing equations of motion and continuity
for two dimensional linear long-wave tsunami
propagation,

We also make the reasonable approximation

that the sea-floor displacement happened
practically instantaneously, so the water
surface will be displaced in a similar manner,
allowing us to get the initial conditions for
tsunami propagation.

For situations where the wavelength is much

larger than the water depth, vertical
acceleration is negligible compared to gravity Here, the Vs represent the depth averaged
and we have uniform horizontal motion as we velocities ( along x and y) and h represents the
move from the ocean bottom to the surface. sea-surface elevation.
Such waves are called long waves and a
tsunami can be considered one. The long
wave approximation was used to simplify the
numerical simulation. ( Ocean depth is usually
 Since for long waves, the phase velocity is The computed waveforms from JAGURS were
independent of wavelength, we have the compared with observed data from specific
following as well, stations selected beforehand, as can be seen
on the map,

Where d is the depth and c is the phase

velocity.

After this, we implement the staggered grid

scheme in JAGURS. With the initial condition
of water surface displacement, we compute a
grid of velocity and water height. The two
grids do not overlap and are shifted from each
other by their half-size. This reduces the
truncation error as compared to other
schemes.

To avoid numerical dispersion, the Courant-

Friedric hs-Lewy stability condition must be The yellow star represents the epicenter and
met, otherwise we would have increasing the red dots are the tidal gauge stations.
errors.
The calculated and observed waveforms
match each other to a certain extent. Upto an
initial approximation, the first arrival time and
shape of the computed waveform matches
the observations. The computed waveforms
The condition can be physically interpreted as are as follows,
saying that the time step should be equal to
or less than the time for the disturbance to
travel over one spatial grid. Accordingly, we
chose time step to be 1 s and the spatial grid
size to be 30 arc-seconds.

Finally, we have the boundary conditions.

There is the land-ocean boundary, where we
assume that there is simple total reflection of
energy. There is also the open ocean
boundary on the outer edges of where we are
computing. Here, the waves are assumed to
leave the domain while maintaining their
slope.

After all this, the JAGURS computation is done

for a total duration of three hours. The
waveforms thus obtained are compared with
the actual data from the tidal gauge stations.

3. Results and Inferences

 The maximum water height distribution over
the three hours of computation was also
plotted. An animation of the propagation of
the tsunami was made and snapshots were
taken every five minutes, though here we
have only shown the stills for times 5 min, 30
min , 60 min, 90 min, 120 min, 150 min, and
180 min.

The observed waveforms for four stations are

as follows, ( dashed lines are observed and
solid lines are multi-fault model computed),

Maximum water height distribution

As can be seen from the maximum water
height distribution and the snapshots
progressing in time, the wavefront is quite
rectangular in shape and highly constrained in
one particular direction. This can be
understood from Huygen’s principle, since the
source of the tsunami is like a somewhat
narrow rectangle. The fact that wavefront is
focused along one side of this rectangle can
also be seen from the fact that Sibolga station
receives barely any disturbance, despite being
about as close to the fault as the other
stations.

4.Conclusions
Although the single fault model computation
with JAGURS gives a qualitatively sensible
result, the fit is not very good. This is possibly
due to not considering a multi-fault model, in
which the fault is divided into multiple
subfaults, with their own slips. Thus, that is a
major improvement that could be done.

Also, an important point to note is that due to

rectangular, unidirectional propagation of the
wave and the fact that there were islands to
break its path, the mainland was not affected
that much, thereby reducing the number of
possible casualties.

5. Acknowledgements
I am grateful towards Professors Shingo
Watada and Kenji Satake for the wonderful
learning experience that this research
internship was. The time and effort that they
put in teaching the basics of tsunami
generation and propagation and the guidance
they provided throughout the program have
helped me grow as a scientist. I also
appreciate the assistance of my UTRIP
supporter, Yuchen Wang. I will also fondly
remember the Earthquake Research Institute
in general, especially the two day field trip to
Fuji and Hakone organized by them. Finally, I
would also like thank to the International
Liaisons Office, the Graduate School of
Science, for their patience and aid throughout
the program. This internship was funded by
the GSS-UTRIP scholarship.

6. References
1] Satake, K. (2015) Treatise on Geophysics,
Second Edition, Vol. 4, pp. 477-504.

2] Okada Y. (1985) Surface deformation due

to shear and tensile faults in a half space,
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of
America, Vol. 75, No. 4, pp. 1135-1154.

3] Kenji Satake’s lecture notes (unpublished).

4] JAGURS Users Guide, ver. 2016.01.29, for

JAGURS-D_V0333.

5]Tsunami Simulation of the 2010 Mentawai,

Indonesia Earthquake Inferred From Tsunami
Field Survey And Waveform Modeling ( Satake
et al)