Pre-eruption landslide as a possible cause of early tsunami waves from Tongo volcano on January 15, 2022

Raissa Mazova; Kirill Polyakov; Dmitry Smirnov; Ivan Smirnov; Andrey Kurkin; Jorge Van Den Bosch F; Raissa Mazova; Kirill Polyakov; Dmitry Smirnov; Ivan Smirnov; Andrey Kurkin; Jorge Van Den Bosch F

doi:10.3934/geosci.2025012

AIMS Geosciences

2025, Volume 11, Issue 2: 274-297. doi: 10.3934/geosci.2025012

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Pre-eruption landslide as a possible cause of early tsunami waves from Tongo volcano on January 15, 2022

1.
Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University n.a. R.E. Alekseev, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2.
V.I. Il'ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute Far Eastern Branch Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, Russia
3.
Engineering Center Mitigation Natural Catastrophes Faculty of Engineering, University of Antofagasta, Antofagasta, Chile

Received: 03 November 2024 Revised: 21 February 2025 Accepted: 14 March 2025 Published: 14 April 2025

In this paper, a mechanism is proposed for the occurrence of "early" tsunami waves on various coasts of the Pacific Ocean, which arrived after the eruption of the Tonga volcano 4–5 hours earlier than the actual time of the tsunami wave arrival at a given sea level. The paper shows that Kthere is another alternative hypothesis about the generation of an early wave train by a pre-eruption landslide source, which is localized on the slope of the Tonga volcano, in addition to the hypothesis available in the literature explaining this phenomenon as the generation of tsunami waves by Lamb waves or caldera collapse. At the same time, during the period of preparing for the eruption, the trigger for the pre-eruption landslide process could have been both minor seismic foreshocks, which were numerous before the eruption, and the process of preparing for the volcanic eruption itself. Wave characteristics of the tsunami generated by the pre-eruption landslide process on the volcanic slope are obtained. A possible implementation of the pre-eruption landslide mechanism for generating "early" tsunami waves is presented by considering various scenarios of pre-eruption landslide source formation and taking the tsunami characteristics at specific sites into account.
- acoustic and long gravitational sea wave (tsunami),
- landslide process,
- numerical simulation,
- tsunami wave characteristics,
- volcanic eruption
Citation: Raissa Mazova, Kirill Polyakov, Dmitry Smirnov, Ivan Smirnov, Andrey Kurkin, Jorge Van Den Bosch F. Pre-eruption landslide as a possible cause of early tsunami waves from Tongo volcano on January 15, 2022[J]. AIMS Geosciences, 2025, 11(2): 274-297. doi: 10.3934/geosci.2025012

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Abstract

In this paper, a mechanism is proposed for the occurrence of "early" tsunami waves on various coasts of the Pacific Ocean, which arrived after the eruption of the Tonga volcano 4–5 hours earlier than the actual time of the tsunami wave arrival at a given sea level. The paper shows that Kthere is another alternative hypothesis about the generation of an early wave train by a pre-eruption landslide source, which is localized on the slope of the Tonga volcano, in addition to the hypothesis available in the literature explaining this phenomenon as the generation of tsunami waves by Lamb waves or caldera collapse. At the same time, during the period of preparing for the eruption, the trigger for the pre-eruption landslide process could have been both minor seismic foreshocks, which were numerous before the eruption, and the process of preparing for the volcanic eruption itself. Wave characteristics of the tsunami generated by the pre-eruption landslide process on the volcanic slope are obtained. A possible implementation of the pre-eruption landslide mechanism for generating "early" tsunami waves is presented by considering various scenarios of pre-eruption landslide source formation and taking the tsunami characteristics at specific sites into account.

References

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