Testing Megathrust Rupture Models Using Tsunami Deposits

The 26 January 1700 CE Cascadia subduction zone earthquake ruptured much of the plate boundary and generated a tsunami that deposited sand in coastal marshes from northern California to Vancouver Island. Although the depositional record of tsunami inundation is extensive in some of these marshes, few sites have been investigated in enough detail to map the inland extent of sand deposition and depict variability in tsunami deposit thickness and grain size. We collected 129 cores in marshes of the Salmon River estuary in Oregon and reanalyzed 114 core logs from a 1987-88 study that mapped the inland extent of circa 1700 CE sandy tsunami deposits. The ca. 1700 CE tsunami deposit in the Salmon River estuary is easily recognized in cores <= 1 m deep in which a buried marsh peat is overlain by a well sorted sand bed with a sharp lower contact that thins and fines inland. We use tsunami deposit data and models of sandy tsunami sediment transport (using Delft3D-FLOW) to test 15 rupture models that could represent a ca. 1700 CE earthquake. At least 12-16 m of slip offshore of the Salmon River, which results in 0.8-1.0 m of coastal coseismic subsidence, is required to match the ca. 1700 CE sand deposit's inland extent, which is consistent with models of heterogeneous megathrust slip in ca. 1700 CE. Our methods of detailed tsunami deposit mapping, combined with sediment transport modeling, can be used to test models of megathrust ruptures and their tsunamis to potentially improve earthquake and tsunami hazard assessments. We rely on the geologic record of great earthquakes and tsunamis, often preserved in the stratigraphy of coastal estuaries, to determine the size, frequency, and location of prehistoric events. At the Cascadia subduction zone, the 1700 CE earthquake caused a meter or more of sudden coastal subsidence and a tsunami that not only inundated coastal areas in Cascadia but was also recorded in Japan. Computer modeling implies that the earthquake occurred around 9 p.m. on 26 January 1700. Although sandy tsunami deposits from the 1700 earthquake are widespread throughout Cascadia, few sites have been cored extensively enough to confidently identify the inland extent of sandy tsunami deposits. We used over 200 sediment cores from the Salmon River estuary in Oregon to map the extent of sandy tsunami deposits from 1700. We then ran numerical models of sediment transport driven by a variety of earthquake generation sources to determine that earthquakes causing at least 0.8 m of subsidence are needed to generate a modeled tsunami capable of recreating the 1700 tsunami deposits observed in cores. This study demonstrates that tsunami deposit mapping and modeling methods can be used to improve our understanding of the impacts of past great earthquakes and tsunamis. Models of sediment transport test earthquake and tsunami sources by comparing the modeled and observed distribution of sandy deposits Sandy deposits can define the minimum inundation of the last major tsunami, around 1700 CE, generated at the Cascadia subduction zone To match tsunami deposit data, models require an earthquake that caused >= 0.8 m of coastal coseismic subsidence at the Salmon River