The Potential for Giant Tsunamigenic Earthquakes in the Northern Bay of Bengal  

Authors / CoAuthors

Cummins, P.R.

Abstract

The Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 came as a surprise to most of the earth science community. Few were aware of the potential for the subduction zone off Sumatra to generate giant (Mw>= 8.5) earthquakes, or that such an earthquake might generate a large tsunami. In retrospect, important indicators that such an event might occur appear to have not been well appreciated: (1) the tectonic environment of Sumatra was typical of those in which giant earthquakes occur; (2) GPS campaigns, as well as paleogeodetic studies indicated extensive locking of the interplate contact; (3) giant earthquakes were known to have occurred historically. While it is now widely recognised that the risk of another giant earthquake is high off central Sumatra, just east of the 2004 earthquake, there seems to be relatively little concern about the subduction zone to the north, in the northern Bay of Bengal along the coast of Myanmar. It is shown here that similar indicators suggest the potential for giant earthquake activity is high: (1) the tectonic environment is similar to other subduction zones that experience giant megathrust earthquakes; (2) stress and crustal strain observations indicate the seismogenic zone is locked; and, (3) historical earthquake activity indicates that giant tsunamigenic earthquakes have occurred in the past. These are all consistent with active subduction in the Myanmar subduction zone, and it is hypothesized here that the seismogenic zone there extends beneath the Bengal Fan. The results suggest that giant earthquakes do occur off the coast of Myanmar, and that a very large and vulnerable population is thereby exposed to a significant earthquake and tsunami hazard.

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nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

65226

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Keywords

• External PublicationScientific Journal Paper

( Theme )

• earthquakes

( Theme )

• tsunamis

( Theme )

• risk assessment

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

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2007-05-14T00:00:00

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

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