The generating mechanisms of the August 17, 1999 İzmit bay (Turkey) tsunami: Regional (tectonic) and local (mass instabilities) causes

Abstract

The M W = 7.4 earthquake that affected the northwestern part of Turkey on August 17, 1999, and in particular the gulf of İzmit, had dramatic consequences also as regards tsunami generation. The main cause of the earthquake was a dextral strike-slip rupture that took place along different segments of the western part of the North Anatolian Fault (WNAF). The rupture process involved not only a number of distinct strike-slip fault segments, but also dip-slip ancillary faults, connecting the main transcurrent segments. The general picture was further complicated by the occurrence of subsidence and liquefaction phenomena, especially along the coasts of the İzmit bay and in the Sapanca Lake. Tsunami effects were observed and measured during post-event surveys in several places along both the northern and the southern coasts of the bay. The run-up heights in most places were reported to lie in the interval 1–3 m: but in the small town of Değirmendere, where a local slump occurred carrying underwater buildings and gardens of the waterfront sector, eyewitnesses reported water waves higher than 15 m. The purpose of this work is to investigate on the causes of the tsunami by means of numerical simulations of the water waves. We show that the tsunami was a complex event consisting at least of the combination of a regional event due to tectonic causes and of a local event associated with the mass failure. As to the first, we are able to demonstrate that the observed tsunami cannot be explained only in terms of the sea bottom dislocation produced by the main right-lateral dislocation, but that the prominent contribution comes from the displacement associated with the secondary shallow normal faults. Furthermore, the large waves and effects seen in Değirmendere can be explained as the consequence of the slump. By means of a stability analysis based on an original method making use of the limit equilibrium concept, we show that the slump was highly stable before the earthquake and that it was triggered by seismic waves. Simulation of the tsunami induced by the slump was carried out by a two-step numerical code that computes the landslide motion first, and then the generated water wave propagation. It is shown that the computed local tsunami matches the experimental data.