Abstract
The problem investigated in this paper is that of estimating the deep water signature of a tsunami based on an observed marigram in the immediate vicinity of an island. The basic assumption is made that the incident tsunami in deep water is represented by a plane wave but that its signature in time at a fixed point in deep water is unknown. This implies that the distance of the earthquake epicenter is large compared with the horizontal scale of the island at its base on the ocean floor. The present study is limited to the linear theory for long waves and accordingly its application requires that the observed water level signatures be at locations where non-linear effects and dispersion are minimal. The method is numerical. For a given direction of the input wave train in deep water and a given observation point (P) near the island, the solution of the problem as posed rests on the determination of the transfer function for the response at P due to the input. If the transfer function can be established from a known pair of input-output time sequences having a broad band spectrum, then in principle, once can estimate the deep water input from other measured time sequences at the same point P. ...
Knowles, Charles Ernest (1971). The inverse tsunami problem for symmetric islands of simple shape. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -178514.