Tsunami Hazard for the Crimean Coast of the Black Sea and the Kerch Strait at the Catastrophic Tsunamigenic Earthquakes, the Locations of which are Close to that of the Historical Yalta Earthquake on September 12, 1927

Purpose. The main purpose of the work is to assess a possible tsunami hazard for the region of location of the Crimean Bridge constructed across the Kerch Strait, since up to present, numerical simulations of the tsunamigenic earthquakes in the Black Sea have never taken the Kerch Strait region (except for the water area at the strait entrance) into consideration as a possible object for a tsunami hazard. Methods and Results. To assess a tsunami hazard for the Kerch Strait and, particularly, for the region of location of the constructed Crimean Bridge, the present paper considers the historical catastrophic tsunamigenic earthquake in the southeastern part of the Crimea Peninsula on September 12, 1927 as well as possible strong earthquakes, the source locations and magnitudes of which can be close to those of the above-mentioned one. The available data on localization and intensity of the earthquake on September 12, 1927 allowed to model the source of such an earthquake. Besides, within the framework of the nonlinear shallow water equations, simulated were the tsunami generation and the tsunami waves' propagation from the single- and two-block seismic sources in the Black Sea along the Crimea Peninsula, at the Kerch Strait entrance and in its water area. The seismic sources of close localization were similarly simulated for two possible tsunamigenic earthquakes in the southeastern part of the Crimea Peninsula. Conclusions. For all the considered scenarios, generation and propagation of the tsunami waves over the water area regions under study were numerically simulated, the histograms of distribution of the wave run-up maximum heights along the Crimea Peninsula and the Kerch Strait coasts were constructed. It is shown that for all the scenarios, in the region of the Crimean Bridge western pillars the tsunami wave heights do not exceed 0.3-0.5 m, whereas in the region of its eastern pillars, possible wave heights are within the range 0.6-1.95 m. The results represented in the paper are compared with the available data on the wave heights in a number of settlements of the Crimea Peninsula coast and at the Kerch Strait entrance, obtained by the other authors.