Tsunami Induced by the Strike-Slip Fault of the 2018 Palu Earthquake
(Mw=7.5), Sulawesi Island, Indonesia
Abstract
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.