Tsunamis

Proceedings of the "Joint IOC -IUGG International Workshop : Tsunami Risk Assessment Beyond 2000: Theory, Practice and Plans , Moscow, June 14-16, 2000", 34-43, 2001.

TSUNAMIS IN THE EAST MEDITERRANEAN: 1. A CATALOGUE FOR THE AREA OF GREECE AND ADJACENT SEAS

G. A. Papadopoulos,
Institute of Geodynamics, National Observatory of Athens, 118 10 Athens, Greece
(e-mail: g.papad@egelados.gein.noa.gr)

1. Introduction

One of the objectives of the CEC DG-XII Projects GITEC (1992-1995) and GITEC-TWO (1996-1998) (GITEC = Genesis and Impact of Tsunamis in the European Coasts, TWO = Tsunami Warning and Observations) has been the preparation of a new unified European Tsunami Catalogue. Indead, the several national groups participating at those projects worked together to produce the new catalogue which is of a completely new format with respect to previous catalogues.

The present report updates that of Papadopoulos (1998) and contains the quick-look part of the new catalogue that covers Greece and its adjacet seas, that is the Aegean Sea, Ionian Sea, Marmara Sea, Albanian coast and SW coast of Turkey.

2. Explanatory Remarks

The present catalogue consists of 160 entries. The information for each entry comes from original historical documents, previous tsunami catalogues, scientific reports, studies or books, and in a few cases from field observations made by the author and collaborating people in selected coastal sites.

For each event the catalogue supplies the corresponding ID number, the time of occurrence (YY=year, MM=month, DD=day, hh=hour, mm=minute, ss=second), the reliability (Rel) of the time of occurrence, the region (M1=Greek and adjacent regions in the European Tsunami Catalogue), the genesis cause, the particular subregion where the genesis cause is located (Lat (N) and Long (E) are the geographical coordinates, both in degrees and minutes, of the respective genesis cause), the reliability (Rel) of the location in minutes, a short description of the event, the intensity (I in MM), the surface-wave magnitute (M) and the focal depth (H in km; n=shallow event, i=intermediate-depth event) of the tsunamigenic earthquake (when the tsunami was due to an earthquake event), the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of the tsunamigenic volcanic eruption (when the tsunami was due to an eruption), the maximum vertical tsunami run-up reported (in cm), the tsunami intensity (TI in the Ambraseys (1962) scale), the reliability (Rel) of the tsunami event, the magnitude of the tsunami event (TM in the Loomis-Murty scale, when it became possible to be calculated) and, finally, an indication showing whether the tsunami paremeters were revised (Y) or not (N) with respect to previous catalogues.

The reliability of the time of occurrence in measured in units of the last entry of the time of occurrence (e.g. in years for the event number 1, in days for the event number 3, in hours in the event number 30, etc.). The genesis causes classification adopted by the GITEC group introduces three main types and several subtypes of tsunami causes: earthquake (ER=submarine earthquake, EA=earthquake-associated, EL=earthquake landslide, ES=earthquake marine slide), volcano (VO=submarine eruption, VA=volcano-associated, VL=volcanic landslide, VS=volcanic marine slide), slump (GL=gravitative landslide, GS=gravitative marine slide).

For the reliability of the tsunami events a modified version of the tsunami reliability scale of Iida (1984) was adopted (0=very improbable tsunami, 1=improbable tsunami, 2=questionable tsunami, 3=probable tsunami, 4=definite tsunami). Practically, events assigned with 0 on the above scale were not included in the catalogue. Some others, described like sea disturbances or sea-quakes were included with reliability 1 or 2 when it is not definitely clear that the respective event was not a tsunami. As for the tsunami magnitude only for three events (numbered 54, 142 and 147) it has been possible to be calculated.

Some additional symbol explanation is needed: (+) after a particular value means "equal to or larger than" ; (- ) after a particular value means "equal to or less than" ; -before the year of occurrence means "Before Christ". An example about the organization of the new European Tsunami Catalogue can be found in Tinti and Maramai (1996).

3. References

The complete list of references used for the compilation of the present catalogue is very long and will appear elsewhere. Here only a list of previous tsunami catalogues used is cited along with papers mentioned in the present report.

Ambraseys N.N., 1962. Data for the investigation of seismic sea waves in the Eastern Mediterranean, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 52, 895-913.

Antonopoulos J., 1980. Data from investigation on seismic sea-waves events in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Birth of Christ to 1980 AD, Annali di Geofisica, 33, (Special Issue).

Galanopoulos A.G., 1960. Tsunamis observed on the coasts of Greece from antiquity to present time, Annali di Geofisica, 13, 369-386.

Iida, K., 1984. Catalog of tsunamis in Japan and its Neighbouring Countries, Dept. of Civil Engin., Aichi Institute of Technology, Japan, pp52.
Papadopoulos, G.A., 1993a. Seismic faulting and nonseismic tsunami generation in Greece, Proc. IUGG/IOC Int. Tsunami Symposium, Wakayama, August 23-27, 1993, 115-122.

Papadopoulos G.A. and Chalkis B.J., 1984. Tsunamis observed in Greece and the surrounding area from antiquity up to the present times, Marine Geology, 56, 309-317.

Papazachos B.C., Koutitas Ch., Hatzidimitriou P.M., Karakostas B.C. and

Papaioannou C.A., 1986. Tsunami hazard in Greece and the surrounding area, Annales Geophysicae, 4, 79-90.

Soloviev S.L., 1990. Tsunamigenic zones in the Mediterranean Sea, Natural Hazards, 3, 183-202.

Tinti S. and Maramai, A., 1996. Catalogue of tsunamis generated in Italy and in Cote d' Azur, France: s step towards a unified catalogue of tsunamis in Europe, Ann. di Geofisica, 39, 1253-1299.