Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 7 1 2007 10.5194/nhess-7-65-2007 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/7/65/2007/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/7/65/2007/nhess-7-65-2007.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/7/65/2007/nhess-7-65-2007.pdf 65 69 2007-01-19 Tsunami wave generation by the eruption of underwater volcano Y. Egorov yegorov@ihs.ac.at Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria Eruption of volcanoes represents one of important origins of tsunami waves and is responsible for most catastrophic tsunami (Krakatau, 1883; Thira, BC). The products of volcano eruption include solids, liquids (lava) and gases. The present article presents hydrodynamic model of relatively slow process of eruption, with domination of liquids. The process of underwater eruption of lava causes the disturbance of ocean free surface. The standard formulation of hydrodynamic problem for incompressible fluid in cylindrically symmetric layer of with rigid bottom and free surface with local hydrodynamic source (volcano) is used. This problem is solved by constructing Green function using methodology of Sretenskij. The solution is obtained in the form of an integral and depends on the dynamics of eruption. Real data show that some volcanoes can erupt several millions of tons of lava during several dozens of seconds (Bezimjannij, Kamchatka). The long waves are more efficiently generated by larger <i>T</i>: these tsunamis can have smaller initial perturbations of free surface, but the waves are long and can transmit their energy over longer distances. Bardet, J.-P., Synolakis C. E., Davies, H. L., Imamura, F., and Okal, E. A.: Landslide tsunamis: recent findings and research directions, Pure Appl. Geophys., 160, 1793&ndash;1809, 2003. Belousov, A., Voight, B., Belousova, M., and Muravyev, Y.: Tsunami generated by subaquatic volcanic explosions: unique data from 1996 eruption in Karymskoe lake, Kamchatka, Russia, P. Appl. Geophys., 157, 1135&ndash;1143, 2000. Brehovskih L. M. (Ed.): Acoustics of the Ocean, 693 p. (in Russian), 1974. Egorov, Yu. A.: Hydrodynamic Model of Tsunami Wave Generated by the Eruption of an Underwater Volcano, in: Natural Catastrophies and Disasters in the Far East Region, edited by: Kaistrenko, V., IMGIG: Yuzhno-Sahalinsk, pp 95&ndash;106 (in Russian), 1990. Ivanov, V. V. and Korolyov, Yu. P.: Tsunami waves generated by the eruption of underwater volcano, Tsunami Investigations, 1, 45&ndash;48 (in Russian), 1986. Le Mehaute, B.: Explosion-generated water waves, Adv. Hydrosci., N. Y. Acad. Press, 7, 1&ndash;79, 1971. Pelinovskij, E. N.: Nonlinear Dynamics of Tsunami Waves, Institute of Applied Physics, Gorky, 1982. Pelinovskij, E.: Hydrodynamics of Tsunami Waves, Institute of Applied Physics, Nizhny Novgorod (in Russian), 1996. Sretenskij, L. N.: Theory of Wave Motion in Fluid. &ndash; M., Nauka, 816 pp. (in Russian), 1977. Taziev, G.: Volcanoes. M., 117 p., 1963. (Russian translation of Haroun Tazieff: Les volcanoes, Paris, 108 p., 1961) Tinti, S., Bortolucci, E., Chiavettieri, C.: Tsunami excitation by submarine slides in shallow-water approximation, Pure Appl. Geophys., 158(4), 759-797, 2001. Woods, A. W., Bower, S. M., and Bursik, M. I.: Models of explosive volcanism, Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 2, 269&ndash;279, 1995.