Regional long-period magnitude scales and their capabilities for tsunami warning

Abstract

The tsunami warning system in the Russian Far East employs the medium-period magnitude MS (BB) by Vaniek–Soloviev. However, its use may lead to inadequacies and underestimates for the tsunamigenic potential of an earthquake. Specifically, this can happen in the case of a so-called tsunami–earthquake. This kind of earthquakes with a nonstandard spectrum was revealed by H. Kanamori in 1972. This problem can be overcome by using a magnitude scale that deals with longer period seismic waves. This study develops a technique for determining the magnitudes at regional distances (from 70 to 4500 km) using the amplitudes of surface seismic waves of periods of 40 and 80 s. At distances of 70–250 km, the amplitude of the joint group of shear and surface waves is used. For the new magnitudes designated M S(40) and M S(80), experimental calibration curves are constructed using more than 1250 three-component records at 12 stations of the region. The magnitudes are calibrated so as to produce an unbiased estimate of the moment magnitude M w in the critical range 7.5–8.8. The rms error of the single-station estimate M w is around 0.27. At distances below 250 km and M w ≥ 8.3, the estimate of M w obtained by the proposed technique becomes saturated at the level of M w ~ 8.3, which is acceptable for operative analysis because no missed alarms arise. The technique can be used in operational tsunami warning based on seismological data. This can markedly decrease the number of false alarms.