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We image the rupture history of the 2009 L'Aquila (central Italy) earthquake using a nonlinear joint inversion of strong motion and GPS data. This earthquake ruptured a normal fault striking along the Apennines axis and dipping to the SW. The inferred slip distribution is heterogeneous and characterized by a small, shallow slip patch located up‐dip from the hypocenter (9.5 km depth) and a large, deeper patch located southeastward. The rupture velocity is larger in the up‐dip than in the along‐strike direction. This difference can be partially accounted by the crustal structure, which is characterized by a high velocity layer above the hypocenter and a lower velocity below. The latter velocity seems to have affected the along strike propagation since the largest slip patch is located at depths between 9 and 14 km. The imaged slip distribution correlates well with the on‐fault aftershock pattern as well as with mapped surface breakages.

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We propose a procedure for uncertainty quantification in Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Analysis (PTHA), with a special emphasis on the uncertainty related to statistical modelling of the earthquake source in Seismic PTHA (SPTHA), and on the separate treatment of subduction and crustal earthquakes (treated as background seismicity). An event tree approach and ensemble modelling are used in spite of more classical approaches, such as the hazard integral and the logic tree. This procedure consists of four steps: (1) exploration of aleatory uncertainty through an event tree, with alternative implementations for exploring epistemic uncertainty; (2) numerical computation of tsunami generation and propagation up to a given offshore isobath; (3) (optional) site-specific quantification of inundation; (4) simultaneous quantification of aleatory and epistemic uncertainty through ensemble modelling. The proposed procedure is general and independent of the kind of tsunami source considered; however, we implement step 1, the event tree, specifically for SPTHA, focusing on seismic source uncertainty. To exemplify the procedure, we develop a case study considering seismic sources in the Ionian Sea (central-eastern Mediterranean Sea), using the coasts of Southern Italy as a target zone. The results show that an efficient and complete quantification of all the uncertainties is feasible even when treating a large number of potential sources and a large set of alternative model formulations. We also find that (i) treating separately subduction and background (crustal) earthquakes allows for optimal use of available information and for avoiding significant biases; (ii) both subduction interface and crustal faults contribute to the SPTHA, with different proportions that depend on source-target position and tsunami intensity; (iii) the proposed framework allows sensitivity and deaggregation analyses, demonstrating the applicability of the method for operational assessments.

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Several independent indicators imply a high probability of a great (M N 8) earthquake rupture of the subduction megathrust under the Mentawai Islands of West Sumatra. The human consequences of such an event depend crucially on its tsunamigenic potential, which in turn depends on unpredictable details of slip distribution on the megathrust and how resulting seafloor movements and the propagating tsunami waves interact with bathymetry. Here we address the forward problem by modelling about 1000 possible complex earthquake ruptures and calculating the seafloor displacements and tsunami wave height distributions that would result from the most likely 100 or so, as judged by reference to paleogeodetic data. Additionally we carry out a systematic study of the importance of the location of maximum slip with respect to the morphology of the fore-arc complex. Our results indicate a generally smaller regional tsunami hazard than was realised in Aceh during the December 2004 event, though more than 20% of simulations result in tsunami wave heights of more than 5 m for the southern Sumatran cities of Padang and Bengkulu. The extreme events in these simulations produce results which are consistent with recent deterministic studies. The study confirms the sensitivity of predicted wave heights to the distribution of slip even for events with similar moment and reproduces Plafker's rule of thumb. Additionally we show that the maximum wave height observed at a single location scales with the magnitude though data for all magnitudes exhibit extreme variability. Finally, we show that for any coastal location in the near field of the earthquake, despite the complexity of the earthquake rupture simulations and the large range of magnitudes modelled, the timing of inundation is constant to first order and the maximum height of the modelled waves is directly proportional to the vertical coseismic displacement experienced at that point. These results may assist in developing tsunami preparedness strategies around the Indian Ocean and in particular along the coasts of western Sumatra.

The aim of this work is to infer the slip distribution and rupture velocity along the rupture zone of the 26 December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake from available tide gage records of the tsunami. We selected waveforms from 14 stations, distributed along the coast of the Indian Ocean. Then we subdivided the fault plane into 16 subfaults (both along strike and downdip) following the geometry and mechanism proposed by Banerjee et al. (2005) and computed the corresponding Green's functions by numerical solution of the shallow-water equations through a finitedifference method. The slip distribution and rupture velocity were determined simultaneously by means of a simulated annealing technique. We compared the recorded and synthetic waveforms in the time domain, using a cost function that is a trade-off between the L1 and L2 norms. Preliminary tests on a synthetic dataset, together with a posteriori statistical analysis of the model ensemble enabled us to assess the effectiveness of the method and to quantify the model uncertainty. The main finding is that the best source model features a nonuniform distribution of coseismic slip, with high slip values concentrated into three main patches: the first is located in the southern part of the fault, off the coast of the Aceh Province; the second between 6.5Њ N and 11Њ N; and the third at depth, between 11Њ N and 14Њ N. Furthermore, we estimated that the rupture propagated at an average speed of 2.0 km/sec.

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