Tsunami generation by dynamic displacement of sea bed due to dip-slip faulting

In classical tsunami-generation techniques, one neglects the dynamic sea bed displacement resulting from fracturing of a seismic fault. The present study takes into account these dynamic effects. Earth's crust is assumed to be a Kelvin-Voigt material. The seismic source is assumed to be a dislocation in a viscoelastic medium. The fluid motion is described by the classical nonlinear shallow water equations (NSWE) with time-dependent bathymetry. The viscoelastodynamic equations are solved by a finite-element method and the NSWE by a finite-volume scheme. A comparison between static and dynamic tsunami-generation approaches is performed. The results of the numerical Computations show differences between the two approaches and the dynamic effects could explain the complicated shapes of tsunami wave trains. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of IMACS.