Improvement to stochastic tsunami hazard analysis of megathrust earthquakes for western Makran subduction zone

Abstract

The Makran Subduction Zone (MSZ) is one of the world's most tsunami-prone regions. In the present study, tsunami hazards associated with potential MSZ earthquakes are evaluated using stochastic earthquake rupture modeling, which allows for the incorporation of uncertainties related to slip heterogeneity. Along the western segment of the MSZ, where tsunami hazard studies have received less attention, megathrust earthquakes with moment magnitudes of Mw 8.5, 8.7, and 8.9 are considered. The source parameters of 600 stochastic earthquake scenarios are calculated using the scaling relationships of Goda et al. (2016), which represent significant improvements over previous scaling relationships by taking into account the uncertainty of multiple source parameters and the coverage of a wide range of earthquake magnitudes. In order to simulate tsunami propagation and inundation, the nonlinear shallow water equations are used in four-level nested grid model domains .According to the calculated slip fields, the seismic source characteristics provided by stochastic source models significantly change within the earthquakes scenarios with identical magnitudes and may completely differ from the results of traditional uniform-slip source models. The results of the 600 Monte Carlo tsunami simulations demonstrate that even extremely large earthquakes in the west MSZ do not lead to significant tsunamis along the eastern coastal regions of Makran. The average maximum wave heights of 8, 10, and 17 m along the western Makran coasts, which correspond to the Mw 8.5, 8.7, and 8.9 scenarios, respectively, emphasize the severe potential threat of a possible tsunamigenic event in the west of the MSZ to the Iranian coasts. In addition, the significant difference between the maximum wave heights of the 10th and 90th percentiles for each scenario demonstrates the large variability of tsunami heights resulting from uncertainties associated with stochastic seismic source modeling. Thus, it can be concluded that the tsunami hazard parameters estimated by simple uniform-slip source models need to be revised in future tsunami risk assessment studies.