The South Sandwich Tsunami of 12 August 2021: An Underestimated Widespread Tsunami Hazard Around the World

Abstract

AbstractOn 12 August 2021 a large Mw 8.1 earthquake, detected by global seismic networks, occurred on the South Sandwich subduction zone in the southern Atlantic Ocean. Approximately 1.5 hr later, a tsunami was clearly recorded on King Edward Point coastal tide gauge (South Georgia Island), approximately 800 km north‐west of the earthquake location. Subsequently it was recorded on other coastal stations both in the Atlantic Ocean, and also in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. A careful and systematic analysis of coastal and deepwater sea‐level records highlights three points: (a) the tsunami propagated across four oceans following major submarine features; (b) despite its very low amplitude, it reached as far as the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, Hawaii and the US West coast as far as Alaska and the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; (c) it was recorded twice on New Zealand DART system NZC, with one record of the tsunami from the East and one from the West. This event is an opportunity to highlight the lack of knowledge about the South Sandwich subduction region in terms of its tsunamigenic potential and the associated tsunami hazard in the Pacific ocean. It should lead to an improvement of national tsunami warning procedures, by including this region as a tsunami source zone, for neighboring regions but also for distant countries like New Zealand or French Polynesia.