DECEMBER 2004 INDIAN OCEAN EARTHQUAKE

AND TSUNAMI
 BASIC CONCEPTS: RIGID PLATES

Earth's outer shell made up of ~15 major rigid plates ~ 100 km thick

Plates move relative to each other at speeds of a few cm/ yr (about

the speed at which fingernails grow)

Plates are rigid in the sense that little (ideally no) deformation occurs
within them,

Most (ideally all) deformation occurs at their boundaries, giving rise to

earthquakes, mountain building, volcanism, and other spectacular
phenomena.

Style of boundary and intraplate deformation depends on direction &

rate of motion, together with thermo-mechanical structure
 BASIC
CONCEPTS:
THERMAL
EVOLUTION OF
OCEANIC
LITHOSPHERE
Stein &
Wysession
2003
Warm mantle material upwells at spreading centers and then cools

Because rock strength decreases with temperature, cooling material

forms strong plates of lithosphere

Cooling oceanic lithosphere moves away from the ridges, eventually

reaches subduction zones and descends in downgoing slabs back into
the mantle, reheating as it goes

Lithosphere is cold outer boundary layer of thermal convection system

involving mantle and core that removes heat from Earth's interior,
controlling its evolution
INDIAN PLATE MOVES NORTH
COLLIDING WITH EURASIA

Gordon & Stein, 1992

 COMPLEX
PLATE
BOUNDARY
ZONE IN
SOUTHEAST
ASIA

Northward motion of
India deforms all of
the region

Many small plates

(microplates) and
blocks

Molnar & Tapponier, 1977

 India subducts
beneath Burma
microplate
at about 50 mm/yr

Earthquakes occur
at plate interface
along the Sumatra
arc (Sunda trench)

These are
spectacular &
destructive results of
many years of
accumulated motion
 INTERSEISMIC:

India subducts beneath

Burma microplate
at about 50 mm/yr
(precise rate hard to infer
given complex geometry)

Fault interface is locked

EARTHQUAKE
(COSEISMIC):

Fault interface slips,

overriding plate
rebounds, releasing Stein & Wysession, 2003
HOW OFTEN:
accumulated motion
Fault slipped ~ 10 m = 10000 mm / 50 mm/yr

10000 mm / 50 mm/yr = 200 yr

Longer if some slip is aseismic

Faults aren’t exactly periodic for reasons we don’t understand

MODELING
SEISMOGRAMS
shows how slip varied
on fault plane
Maximum slip area
~400 km long
Maximum slip ~ 20 m
Stein & Wysession
 TWO VIEWS OF THE PART OF THE SUMATRA
SUBDUCTION ZONE THAT SLIPPED

ERI
C. Ji
Seismogram analysis shows Aftershocks show slip
most slip in southern 400 km extended almost 1200 km
Earthquakes rupture a patch
along fault's surface.
Generally speaking, the
larger the rupture patch, the
larger the earthquake
magnitude.
Initial estimates from the
aftershock distribution show
the magnitude 9.3 Sumatra-
Andaman Islands Earthquake
ruptured a patch of fault
roughly the size of California
For comparison, a magnitude
5 earthquake would rupture
a patch roughly the size of
New York City's Central Park.
NORMAL MODES
(ULTRA-LONG
PERIOD WAVES)
SHOW SEISMIC
MOMENT 3 TIMES
THAT INFERRED
FROM SURFACE
WAVES
IMPLIES SLIP ON
AREA 3 TIMES
LARGER

Entire 1200-km
long aftershock
zone likely slipped
 S2 YIELDS SEISMIC
0
MOMENT Mo =
1 x 1030 dyn-cm

2.5 TIMES BIGGER THAN

INFERRED FROM 300-s
SURFACE WAVES
CORRESPONDING MOMENT
MAGNITUDE Mw IS 9.3,
COMPARED TO 9.0 FROM
SURFACE WAVES

Comparison of fault areas,

moments, magnitudes,
amount of slip shows this was
a gigantic earthquake

“the big one”

IF ENTIRE ZONE
SLIPPED, STRAIN
BUILT UP HAS
BEEN RELEASED,
LEAVING LITTLE
DANGER OF
COMPARABLE
TSUNAMI

Risk of local tsunami

from large aftershocks
or oceanwide tsunami
from boundary
segments to south
remains
 EARTHQUAKE MAGNITUDE 9.3

Stein & Wysession after IRIS

One of the largest earthquakes since seismometer invented

~ 1900
 SUCH GREAT
EARTHQUAKES
ARE RARE

Stein & Wysession, 2003

SOME MAJOR DAMAGE DONE BY EARTHQUAKE SHAKING ITSELF,
BUT STRONG GROUND MOTION DECAYS RAPIDLY WITH DISTANCE

0.2 g

Stein & Wysession, 2003

 DAMAGE DEPENDS ON BUILDING TYPE
RESISTANT CONSTRUCTION REDUCES EARTHQUAKE RISKS

0.2 g
Damage
onset for
modern
buildings

Coburn &
“Earthquakes don't kill people; buildings kill people." Spence 1992
TSUNAMI - water wave generated by earthquake

NY Times
TSUNAMI GENERATED ALONG FAULT, WHERE SEA
FLOOR DISPLACED, AND SPREADS OUTWARD

QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Hyndeman and Wang, 1993 Red - up motion, blue down

http://staff.aist.go.jp/kenji.satake/animation.gif
TSUNAMI SPEED IN
DEEP WATER of
depth d

c = (gd)1/2
g = 9.8 m/s2 d = 4000 m
QuickTime™ and a
GIF decompressor
c = 200 m/s = 720 km/hr are needed to see this picture.

= 450 m/hr

Tsunami generated
along fault, where sea
floor displaced, and
spreads outward

Reached Sri Lanka in 2

hrs, India in 2-3
http://staff.aist.go.jp/kenji.satake/animation.gif
 WAVE PATH GIVEN BY SNELL’S LAW
Going from material with speed v1 to speed v2
Angle of incidence I changes by
sin i1 / v1 = sin i2 / v2

SLOW
FAST

Stein & Wysession

Tsunami wave bends as water depth & thus speed changes

TRACE RAY
PATHS USING
SNELL’S LAW
RAYS BEND
AS WATER
DEPTH
CHANGES
FIND WHEN
WAVES
ARRIVE AT
DIFFERENT
PLACES
DENSITY OF
WAVES
SHOWS
1 hour
FOCUSING &
DEFOCUSING

Woods & Okal, 1987

NOAA
IN DEEP OCEAN tsunami has long wavelength, travels fast,
small amplitude - doesn’t affect ships

AS IT APPROACHES SHORE, it slows. Since energy is

conserved, amplitude builds up - very damaging
 TSUNAMI WARNING

Because seismic waves travel much

faster (km/s) than tsunamis, rapid
analysis of seismograms can identify
Deep ocean buoys can measure
earthquakes likely to cause major
wave heights, verify tsunami and
tsunamis and predict when waves will
reduce false alarms
arrive
 HOWEVER, HARD TO PREDICT EARTHQUAKES
recurrence is highly variable

Sieh et al., 1989

Extend earthquake history
with geologic records M>7 mean 132 yr  105 yr
-paleoseismology Estimated probability in 30 yrs 7-51%
EARTHQUAKE RECURRENCE
AT SUBDUCTION ZONES IS
COM PLICATED

In many subduction zones, thrust

earthquakes have patterns in
space and time. Large
earthquakes occurred in the
Nankai trough area of Japan
approximately every 125 years
since 1498 with similar fault areas

In some cases entire region seems

to have slipped at once; in others
slip was divided into several
events over a few years.

Repeatability suggests that a

segment that has not slipped for
some time is a gap due for an
earthquake, but it’s hard to use GAP?
this concept well because of
NOTHING YET Ando, 1975
variability
 EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION?

Because little is known about the fundamental physics of faulting, many

attempts to predict earthquakes searched for precursors, observable behavior
that precedes earthquakes. To date, search has proved generally unsuccessful

In one hypothesis, all earthquakes start off as tiny earthquakes, which happen
frequently, but only a few cascade via random failure process into large
earthquakes

This hypothesis draws on ideas from nonlinear dynamics or chaos theory, in

which small perturbations can grow to have unpredictable large consequences.
These ideas were posed in terms of the possibility that the flap of a butterfly's
wings in Brazil might set off a tornado in Texas, or in general that minuscule
disturbances do not affect the overall frequency of storms but can modify when
they occur

If so, there is nothing special about those tiny earthquakes that happen to
grow into large ones, the interval between large earthquakes is highly variable
and no observable precursors should occur before them. Thus earthquake
prediction is either impossible or nearly so.

“It’s hard to predict earthquakes, especially before they happen”

 PLATE TECTONICS IS Mt Saint Helens
1980 eruption
DESTRUCTIVE TO HUMAN
SOCIETY

USGS

1989
Loma Prieta
earthquake
 BUT PLATE TECTONICS
IS ALSO CRUCIAL FOR
HUMAN LIFE

Plate boundary volcanism produces

atmospheric gases (carbon dioxide
CO2 ; water H2O) needed to support life
and keep planet warm enough for life
("greenhouse" )

May explain how life evolved on earth

(at midocean ridge hot springs)

Plate tectonics raises continents above

sea level

Plate tectonics produces mineral

resources including fossil fuels Press & Siever
“CIVILIZATION EXISTS
BY GEOLOGICAL
CONSENT”

The same geologic processes

that make our planet
habitable also make it
dangerous