Tsunami hazard assessment in the Colombian Caribbean Coast with a deterministic approach

Abstract:

For the Caribbean Sea, we propose six potential tectonic sources of tsunami, defining for each source the worst credible earthquake from the analysis of historical seismicity, tectonics, pasts tsunami, and review of IRIS, PDE, NOAA, and CMT catalogs. The generation and propagation of tsunami waves in the selected sources were simulated with COMCOT 1.7, which is a numerical model that solves the linear and nonlinear long wave equations in finite differences in both Cartesian, and spherical coordinates. The results of the modeling are presented in maps of maximum displacement of the free surface for the Colombian Caribbean coast and the island areas, and they show that the event would produce greater impact is generated in the source of North Panama Deformed Belt (NPDB), where the first wave train reaches the central Colombian coast in 40 minutes, generating wave heights up to 3.7 m. In San Andrés and Providencia island, tsunami waves reach more than 4.5 m due effects of edge waves caused by interactions between waves and a barrier coral reef around of each island. The results obtained in this work are useful for planning systems and future regional and local warning systems and to identify priority areas to conduct detailed research to the tsunami threat.