On 9 October 2023 (JST), mysterious tsunamis with a maximum wave height of 60 cm were observed in Izu Islands and southwestern Japan, although only seismic events of body-wave magnitudes mb 4–5 have been documented in the southwest of Torishima Island. To investigate the source process, we analyze tsunami waveforms recorded by an array network of ocean-bottom pressure gauges. A stacked waveform of 16 records suggests recurrent arrivals of multiple wave trains. Deconvolution of the stacked waveform by a tsunami waveform from the first event revealed over 10 source events that intermittently generated tsunamis for ~1.5 hours. The temporal history of this sequence corresponds to the origin times of T-phases estimated by an ocean-bottom seismometer, and the mb 4–5 seismic swarm, implying a common origin. Larger events later in the sequence occurred at intervals comparable to the tsunami wave period, causing amplification of later phases of the tsunami waves.

Two submarine earthquakes (Mw 5.8) occurred near volcanic islands, Curtis and Cheeseman, in the Kermadec Arc in 2009 and 2017. Following both earthquakes, similar tsunamis with wave heights of about a meter, larger than expected from their moderate seismic magnitudes, were observed by coastal tide gauges. We investigate the source mechanism for both earthquakes by analyzing tsunami and seismic data of the 2017 event. Tsunami waveform analysis indicates that the earthquake uplifted a submerged caldera around the islands. Combined analysis of tsunami and seismic data suggests that trapdoor faulting, or sudden intra-caldera fault slip interacted with magma reservoir deformation, occurred due to magma overpressure, possibly in association with caldera resurgence. The earthquake scaling relationship for trapdoor faulting events at three calderas deviates from that for regular earthquakes, possibly due to the fault-reservoir interaction in calderas.

The violent 2022 Tonga submarine volcanic eruption produced globally propagating atmospheric disturbance. The short explosive eruption generated a leading Lamb wave pulse that are recorded as a pressure pulse worldwide. A weather station network in Japan recorded the pressure pulse as well as temperature and winds during the passage of the Lamb pressure pulse. Individual temperature and wind records indicate little simultaneous change. However, after aligning temperature and wind records at the timing of pressure pulse arrivals and stacking, we obtain clear temperature and wind changes synchronized with the pressure change. By assuming Lamb wave propagation synthesized temperature and wind changes from the pressure record match well the observed waveforms. Observed wind speed and pressure change of the Lamb pulse directly yield the total energy transported by the pulse to be 4.2 x 1016 J.

Moderate earthquakes (Mw > 5) with moment tensors (MTs) dominated by a vertical compensated-linear-vector-dipole (vertical-CLVD) component are often generated by dip slip along a curved ring-fault system at active volcanoes. However, relating their MTs to ring-fault parameters has been proved difficult. The objective of this study is to find a robust way of estimating some ring-fault parameters based on their MT solutions obtained from long-period seismic records. We first model the MTs of idealized ring-faulting and show that MT components representing the vertical-CLVD and vertical strike-slip mechanisms are resolvable by the deviatoric MT inversion using long-period seismic waves, whereas a component representing the vertical dip-slip mechanism is indeterminate owing to a shallow source depth. We then propose a new method for estimating the arc angle and orientation of ring-faulting using the two resolvable MT components. For validation, we study a vertical-CLVD earthquake that occurred during the 2005 volcanic activity at the Sierra Negra caldera, Galápagos Islands. The resolvable MT components are stably determined with long-period seismic waves, and our estimation of the ring-fault parameters is consistent with the ring-fault geometry identified by previous geodetic studies and field surveys. We also estimate ring-fault parameters of two earthquakes that took place during the 2018 activity at the caldera, revealing significant differences between the two earthquakes in terms of slip direction and location. These results show the usefulness of our method for estimating ring-fault parameters, enabling us to examine the kinematics and structures below active volcanoes with ring faults that are distributed globally.

The main cause of tsunamis is large subduction zone earthquakes with seismic magnitudes Mw > 7, but submarine volcanic processes can also generate tsunamis. At the submarine Sumisu caldera in the Izu–Bonin arc, moderate-sized earthquakes with Mw < 6 occur almost once a decade and cause meter-scale tsunamis. The source mechanism of the volcanic earthquakes is poorly understood. Here we use tsunami and seismic data for the recent 2015 event to show that abrupt uplift of the submarine caldera, with a large brittle rupture of the ring fault system due to overpressure in its magma reservoir, caused the earthquake and tsunami. This submarine trapdoor faulting mechanism can efficiently generate tsunamis due to large vertical seafloor displacements, but it inefficiently radiates long-period seismic waves. Similar seismic radiation patterns and tsunami waveforms due to repeated earthquakes indicate that continuous magma supply into the caldera induces quasi-regular trapdoor faulting. This mechanism of tsunami generation by submarine trapdoor faulting underscores the need to monitor submarine calderas for robust assessment of tsunami hazards.

An unusual devastating tsunami occurred on 28 September 2018 after a strike-slip faulting earthquake in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The induced tsunami struck Palu city with 4-m wave height and flow depth. We performed a two-step analysis to investigate the source of the tsunami. We first conducted the teleseismic source inversion and obtained the slip distribution of the strike-slip fault. Our tsunami simulation from the coseismic deformation of the seismically-estimated strike-slip faulting produced a tsunami comparable to the leading part of the observation at Pantoloan. We then jointly utilized the tsunami waveform and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data to reconstruct the detailed slip distribution on the fault plane. Because of the lack of SAR data in the bay, the tsunami data is necessary to constrain the offshore slip distribution, which directly induces the tsunami. The inverted source model shows a strike-slip fault which consists of three segments extending from the epicenter to the south of 1.4°S with two bends and two asperities around Palu city. The joint inversion model accurately reconstructs the observed surface displacements and the leading part of the tsunami waveform. Our result exhibits the significant contribution of the strike-slip faulting to the tsunami, but it also suggests additional tsunami sources, such as landslides, for the high inundations near Palu bay. The result also indicates that regional devastating tsunamis can result from an onshore strike-slip fault with localized large dip slip.