Toward a more robust tsunami early warning system: integration of real-time GPS, strong motion and teleseismic data for fast seismic source inversion

Kejie Chen, Zhen Liu, & Tony Song

Published July 30, 2017, SCEC Contribution #7363, 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #080 (PDF)

Compared with seismometers, GPS receivers record co-seismic displacements directly without saturation, which is particularly sensitive to characterize mega tsunamigenic earthquakes and especially important for tsunami early warning. As a result, the "GPS-aided Real-Time Earthquake And Tsunami (GREAT) Alert System", which utilizes coastal GPS data for estimation of submarine earthquake features and resulting tsunamis, have been set up and operated by researchers at JPL. However, extensive GPS networks exist only in areas such as California and Japan. What's more, displacements triggered by earthquakes decay very fast and remote GPS stations may not detect seismic signals at all. In response, we suggest a more robust global tsunami early warning prototype using all publicly available GPS, strong motion and teleseismic data. Specially, we integrate co-located GPS/Strong motion data by Kalman filter to produce more accurate seismogeodetic waveforms with longer period, develop fast finite source inversion algorithms based on near field GPS static offsets and teleseismic waves according to three-dimensional subduction geometries SLAB 1.0. Promising results from recent events (e.g., 2015 Illapel, 2016 New Zealand, 2016 New Ireland Region) demonstrate the robustness of the new approach and that this in turn can be implemented for tsunami hazard mitigation.

Citation
Chen, K., Liu, Z., & Song, T. (2017, 07). Toward a more robust tsunami early warning system: integration of real-time GPS, strong motion and teleseismic data for fast seismic source inversion. Poster Presentation at 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Seismology