Constrains on the source of the 1755 Lisbon tsunami inferred from numerical modelling of historical data on the source of the 1755 Lisbon tsunami

Baptista, María Ana; Miranda, Pedro; Miranda, J. M.; Victor, L. A. Mendes

doi:10.1016/s0264-3707(97)00020-3

Cited by 141 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…When dealing with the chances of re-occurrence, continued overestimation of the height of the tsunami waves at shoreline could prove detrimental to a proper assessment of the risk, and of the need for warning, mitigation and remediation plans: the published results show that the numerical models are unable to generate waves in the 15 to 25 m range of height (Baptista et al, 1998b(Baptista et al, , 2003Gutscher et al, 2006), at least when investigating plausible seismic sources: this would make the 1755 tsunami, as defined in the classical interpretation of the records, an exceptional event, out of the range of the normal possibilities of Physics: it may have appeared acceptable in the eighteenth century, when the quarrel between the "Catastrophists" and the followers of the "Actual Causes" had not yet taken place, let alone been resolved. Somehow, it also appeared to justify the heavy impact of the event on the ideas of the time: the Priests advised the transgressors to repent, while the Philosophers pointed out to the fact that Lisbon never was more sinful than any other European capital.…”

Section: Human Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earthquakes and tsunami in November 1755 in Morocco: a different reading of contemporaneous documentary sources

Blanc

2009

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Tsunami seldom strike the European Atlantic shores. The great Lisbon Earthquake of 1 November 1755 is the main destructive tsunamigenic event recorded. Since the mid-1990's, many simulations of propagation of tsunami waves from variants of the possible seismic source have been conducted. Estimates of run-up in Morocco are seldom included in publications, maybe for want of reliable historical data to control the simulations. This paper revisits some early accounts, transmitted as translations to European Chanceries, Scientific Societies and Newspapers. A critical analysis of the documents leads us to conclude that the Lisbon earthquake was overestimated because of amalgamation with a later Rifian earthquake. Then, the overestimation of the tsunami through worst interpretation of the scant data available appeared only reasonable, while the moderate measurements or interpretations were not given their due attention. In Morocco the amplitude of the tsunami (i.e. height at shoreline minus expected tide level) may not have exceed the measurement given by Godin (1755) for Cadiz, 2.5 m above the calculated astronomical tide, a crest-to-trough amplitude of 5 m at most. This age-old overestimation of both the earthquake and tsunami is detrimental to the evaluation of the risk for coastal people and activities.

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Section: Human Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earthquakes and tsunami in November 1755 in Morocco: a different reading of contemporaneous documentary sources

Blanc

2009

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…In this study, we focused our attention on Global Sensitivity Analysis approaches which rely on sampling based methods for uncertainty propagation, willing to fully map the space of possible 10 model predictions from the various model uncertain input parameters and then, allowing to rank the significance of the input parameter uncertainty contribution to the model output variability (Baroni and Tarantola, 2014). GSA approaches are well suited to be applied with models having nonlinear behaviour and when interaction among parameters occurs (Saint-Geours, 2012).…”

Section: Sensitivity Analysis (Step D)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, source location and contemporary effects of such tsunami are not precisely identified. Several earthquake scenarios have already been published in the literature since last decades (Baptista et al, 1998;Grandin et al, 2007;Gutscher et al, 2006;Horsburgh et al, 2008;Johnston, 1996;Zitellini et al, 1999), mainly based on a comparison of several fault hypothesis based on geological properties of the Azores-Gibraltar fault zone (AGFZ). All of 10 these studies show how variable parameters of the seismic source can be, depending on the studied fault and focal mechanisms.…”

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confidence: 99%

Development of a methodological framework for the assessment of seismic induced tsunami hazard through uncertainty quantification: application to the Azores-Gibraltar Fracture Zone

Bacchi

Antoshchenkova

Jomard

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Abstract. The aim of this study is to show how a numerical database constructed using "uncertainty quantification techniques" can be a useful tool for the analysis of the tsunamigenic potential of a seismic zone. This methodology mainly 10 relies on the construction and validation of some "emulators", or "meta-models", used instead of the original models in order to evaluate and quantify the uncertainty and the sensitivity of the tsunamis height at a given location to the seismic source parameters. The proposed approach was tested by building a numerical database of nearly 50,000 tsunamis scenarios generated by the Azores-Gibraltar Fracture Zone (AGFZ) and potentially impacting the French Atlantic Coast. This seismic area was chosen as test-case because of its complexity and the large uncertainty related to its characterization of 15 tsunamigenic earthquake sources. Finally, the tsunami hazard resulting from uncertainty quantification was presented and discussed with respect to the results which can be obtained with a more classical deterministic (or scenario-based) approach.It must be underlined that the results from this study are the illustration of a general methodology through a case study with simplified hypothesis, which is not an operational assessment of tsunami hazard along the French Atlantic Coast.

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“…Recent studies on the likely source area of the famous 1755 Lisbon tsunami, which followed a magnitude 8.5 earthquake and caused about 60 000 casualties (Baptista et al 1998; see also Canals et al 2004 and references therein), have identified a potential tsunamigenic fault source and associated mass movements (Gracia et al 2003). During the 1929 Great Banks earthquake and associated landslides initial slope failure occurred near the earthquake epicentre and were followed by a catastrophic tsunami.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the role of sandy–silty sediments in generating slope failures during earthquakes: example from the Algerian margin

Dan

Sultan

Savoye

et al. 2008

Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch)

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Abstract:The Algerian margin is a seismically active region, where during the last century, several large magnitude earthquakes took place. This study combines geotechnical and sedimentological data with numerical modelling to quantitatively assess the present-day slope stability of the Algerian margin. Geotechnical laboratory tests, such as cyclic triaxial tests, oedometric tests and vane shear tests were carried out on sediment cores collected on the study area. The liquefaction potential of a sediment column located about 30 km from the Boumerdès earthquake epicentre of 21st May 2003 was evaluated theoretically for an earthquake of M w = 6.8. We show that thin sand and silt beds such as those described on recovered sediment cores are the main cause of sediment deformation and liquefaction during earthquakes. Numerical calculations showed that the slope failure may occur during an earthquake characterised by a PGA in excess of 0.1g, and also that, under a PGA of 0.2g liquefaction could be triggered in shallow silty-sandy deposits. Moreover, comparison of the predicted slope failure with failure geometries inferred from seafloor morphology showed that earthquakes and subsequent mass movements could explain the present-day morphology of the study area.

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Constrains on the source of the 1755 Lisbon tsunami inferred from numerical modelling of historical data on the source of the 1755 Lisbon tsunami

Cited by 141 publications

References 13 publications

Earthquakes and tsunami in November 1755 in Morocco: a different reading of contemporaneous documentary sources

Earthquakes and tsunami in November 1755 in Morocco: a different reading of contemporaneous documentary sources

Development of a methodological framework for the assessment of seismic induced tsunami hazard through uncertainty quantification: application to the Azores-Gibraltar Fracture Zone

Quantifying the role of sandy–silty sediments in generating slope failures during earthquakes: example from the Algerian margin

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