Center for Coastal and Land-Margin Research (CCALMR)

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Impact of tsunamis on Oregon coastal communities


Scenarios of Sea Floor Deformation

The uncertainties regarding the definition of CSZ sea floor deformations led us to nvestigate several alternative scenarios of deformation. The figures below illustrate four major such scenarios. Each figure shows isolines of predicted uplift and subsidence from hypothetical subduction zone earthquakes. Redish colors indicate uplift, and blueish colors indicate subsidence. The darker the color, the larger the sea floor deformation.

Scale of sea floor deformation, in meters Map Scale, in kilometers

Scenario 1
Used by Paul Whitmore, of the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, as the basis for his 1993 predictions of theoretical wave height for the Oregon Coast. Whitmore's predictions have been used by local communities for tsunami hazard planning, and his sea floor deformation scenario was included in our research as a reference. An extensive subsidence zone is visible off the coast of Oregon and Washington, leading to subsidence at the shoreline that does not match coseismic subsidence inferred from studies by Curt Peterson of buried wetland soils.

Scenario 2
A first attempt to account for Roy Hyndman's and Kelin Wang's information on crustal temperature in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The subsidence region starts further offshore than in Scenario 1, and does not match the coseismic subsidence inferred from buried wetland soils.

Scenario 3
Accounts matches geological information from paleotsunamis. The uplifts region is broader than for other scenarios, and most subsidence is onshore.

Scenario 4
Is a second attempt to more accurately accounting for information on crustal temperature, while providing a fairly good match to the data from buried wetland soils. Note that the broader uplift region is higher than for the other scenarios and, like in Scenario 3, the subsidence is mostly on or close to shore.

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