2006 Kuril Islands earthquake

2006 Kuril Islands earthquake
UTC time	2006-11-15 11:14:13
ISC event	9235276
USGS-ANSS	ComCat
Local date	November 15, 2006
Local time	8:14 pm
Magnitude	8.3 Mw
Depth	31 km (19 mi)
Epicenter	46°35′31″N 153°15′58″E / 46.592°N 153.266°E
Fault	Kuril–Kamchatka Trench
Type	Megathrust
Areas affected	Japan, Russia
Max. intensity	MMI IV (Light); ; JMA 2
Tsunami	Up to 21.9 m (72 ft) in Matua Island, Kuril Islands
Casualties	1 injured

The 2006 Kuril Islands earthquake occurred on November 15 at 8:14:16 pm JST with a M_w magnitude of 8.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IV (Light) and a maximum Shindo intensity of JMA 2. This megathrust earthquake was the largest event in the central Kuril Islands since 1915 and generated a small tsunami that affected the northern Japanese coast. The tsunami crossed the Pacific Ocean and damaged the harbor at Crescent City, California. Post-tsunami surveys indicate that the local tsunami in the central Kuril Islands reached runups of 21.9 metres (72 ft) or higher.^[4]^[5]

This earthquake is also considered a doublet of the 2007 Kuril Islands earthquake that hit the same area on January 13, 2007.^[6]

Tsunami

At about 11:45 UTC, tsunami warnings were issued in Japan for the north coasts of Hokkaidō and Honshū, and a number of towns in this area were very quickly evacuated. Tsunami warnings, advisories and watches were also issued for the coastal areas of Alaska, Hawaii, parts of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. JMA initially estimated tsunami waves to be as tall as 2 metres when it hit the Japanese northern and eastern coasts, but it turned out to be merely 40 centimetres when it reached Hanasaki Ko, Nemuro, Nemuro, Hokkaidō at 9:29 pm local time. The tsunami also hit the rest of Hokkaidō and Tōhoku Region. The tallest wave recorded in Japan was at Tsubota (坪田), Miyakejima (三宅島) in the Izu Shotō of the Tokyo To, at 84 centimetres. Tsunami also hit as far as Anami in Kagoshima Prefecture and Naha in Okinawa Prefecture, and reached the Hawaiian and California coasts. A 176-centimetre wave in the harbor at Crescent City, California caused an estimated $10 million in damage to the docks there.^[7] The United States authorities had issued warnings for the Russian Far East, Japan, Wake Island and Midway Atoll.

The nearfield tsunami struck islands with no current inhabitants. However, geologists and archaeologists had visited these islands the previous summer, and returned in the summers of 2007 and 2008.^[8]^[9]^[10] Because there were two central Kurils tsunamis in the winter of 2006/2007 (see 2007 Kuril Islands earthquake), the specific effects of each tsunami are difficult to determine; but evidence shows that the 2006 tsunami was the larger on all islands in the Kurils except for parts of Rasshua.^[11]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ISC (2015), ISC-GEM Global Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue (1900–2009), Version 2.0, International Seismological Centre
^ USGS. "M 8.3 - Kuril Islands". United States Geological Survey.
^ USGS (September 4, 2009), PAGER-CAT Earthquake Catalog, Version 2008_06.1, United States Geological Survey, archived from the original on 2020-03-13
^ "Tsunami Event: KURIL ISLANDS". NGDC.
^ MacInnes, B.T., Bourgeois, J., Pinegina, T.K., Kravchunovskays, E., 2009. Tsunami geomorphology: erosion and deposition from the 15 November 2006 Kuril Island tsunami: Geology, v. 37, p. 995–998.
^ Ammon, Charles J.; Kanamori, Hiroo; Lay, Thorne (2008), "A great earthquake doublet and seismic stress transfer cycle in the central Kuril islands" (PDF), Nature, 451 (7178): 561–5, Bibcode:2008Natur.451..561A, doi:10.1038/nature06521, PMID 18235499, S2CID 4317389.
^ Central Kuril Island Tsunami in Crescent City, California Archived 2010-02-26 at the Wayback Machine University of Southern California
^ MacInnes et al., 2009, see above.
^ Bourgeois, J. and MacInnes, B.T., 2010. Tsunami boulder transport and other dramatic effects of the 15 November 2006 central Kuril Islands tsunami on the island of Matua: Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie, Supplementbände Volume 54, Supplementary Issue 3 (2010), p. 175–195 doi:10.1127/0372-8854/2010/0054S3-0024.
^ MacInnes, B.T., Pinegina, T.K., Bourgeois, J., Razhegaeva, N.G., Kaistrenko, V.M., and Kravchunovskaya, E.A., 2009, Field survey and geological effects of the 15 November 2006 Kuril tsunami in the middle Kuril Islands, Pure and Applied Geophysics v. 166, doi:10.1007/s00024-008-0428-3.
^ MacInnes, B.T., 2010 Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington.