Tsunami hazard in the Black Sea and the Azov Sea: A new tsunami catalogue

Abstract

7 have been reported, which very roughly indicates that the mean repeat time is sim; 750 years. Five reliable tsunamis of moderate intensity 4 ≤ K < 7 have been observed from 1650 up to the present, which implies a recurrence of 72 years on the average. Although these calculations were based on a very small statistical sample of tsunami events, the repeat times found are consistent with the theoretical expectations from size-frequency relations. However, in the Black Sea there is no evidence of tsunamis of very high intensity (K < 10) such as the AD 365, 1303 and 1956 ones associated with large earthquakes occurring along the Hellenic arc and trench, Greece, or the 1908 one in Messina strait, Italy. This observation, along with the relatively low tsunami frequency, indicates that the tsunami hazard in the Black Sea is low to moderate but not negligible. The tsunami hazard in the Azov Sea is very low because of the very low seismicity but also because of the shallow water prevailing there. In fact, only three possible tsunami events have been reported in the Azov Sea. © 2011 Author(s).