1585 Aleutian Islands earthquake

1585 Aleutian Islands earthquake
	The epicenter of the earthquake is thought to have been in the eastern Aleutian Islands.
Local date	11 June 1585
Magnitude	9.25 Mw
Epicenter	Aleutian subduction zone
Type	Megathrust
Areas affected	Hawaii, Alaska; Sanriku, Japan
Tsunami	Yes
Casualties	Many native people in Hawaii killed

The 1585 Aleutian Islands earthquake is the presumed source of a tsunami along the Sanriku coast of Japan on 11 June 1585, known only from vague historical accounts and oral traditions. The event was initially misdated to 1586, which led to it being associated with the deadly earthquakes in Peru and Japan of that year. A megathrust earthquake on the Aleutian subduction zone in the North Pacific Ocean was hypothesized as the tsunami's source. Paleotsunami evidence from shoreline deposits and coral rocks in Hawaii suggest that the 1585 event was a large megathrust earthquake with a moment magnitude (M_w ) as large as 9.25.

Background

In 1586, a legend emerged in Japan describing a wave measuring up to two meters which struck near Tokura village in the Motoyoshi District of Miyagi Prefecture.^[1] Surviving historical accounts from the period are ambiguous or incomplete, which has made it difficult to identify the tsunami's specific origin. The tsunami was dubbed the "orphan tsunami" or "ghost tsunami" due to the uncertainties regarding the event.

Tsunami event

According to Kenji Satake, a Japanese seismologist, the legend of the 1586 tsunami should be disregarded because it was a false event. There was no historical documentation of a tsunami striking the Sanriku coast in that year.^[2]

In the aftermath of the deadly 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile and the associated tsunami in Japan, Seishi Ninomiya, a researcher at Tohoku University, gathered historical accounts of tsunamis along the Sanriku coasts and matched up the tsunami from the 1586 legend with a corresponding earthquake in Peru on 9 July that same year. The 8.1 M_w  Peru earthquake of 1586 ruptured an estimated 175-km-long section of the Peru-Chile megathrust. Historical descriptions of the tsunami that struck locally in Callao reported two very different heights, 3.7 meters and 24 meters.^[3] The latter was determined to be an exaggeration of the tsunami height after much evaluation;^[4] a more accurate estimate for the 1586 Peru tsunami is 5 meters.^[5] Further modelling of the Peru tsunami by a group of researchers in 2006 was unsuccessful in accurately matching the historical descriptions of the wave heights in Peru and Japan.^[6]^[4] Large tsunamis originating in Chile have been reported in Japan due to the orientation of the tsunami source, but Peru-sourced tsunamis are usually weaker because they are not directed towards Japan, suggesting that the claim of a Peru tsunami causing the 1586 event in Japan is incorrect.^[7]

In another tsunami catalog compiled after the 1933 Sanriku earthquake, the author referenced a 1903 publication which stated that a tsunami occurred on 11 June 1585, or Tensho 13th year, 5th month and 14th day. Meanwhile, another tsunami event on 18 January 1586, was recorded, possibly associated with the 1586 Tenshō earthquake (ja). Because the Tenshō earthquake occurred in 1586, the Sanriku tsunami was incorrectly dated to 1586, coincidentally matching the Peru quake as well.^[7]

Hawaiian culture

The Hawaiian Islands have been known to be hit with large, distant-sourced tsunamis and locally sourced megatsunamis. The last known megatsunami occurred more than 10,000 years ago. Throughout the Holocene, tsunamis have repeatedly struck the islands leaving behind evidence of inundation in the form of deposits. Historical legends passed down by the natives have also described tsunamis hitting the island. One of these tsunamis struck Kāne‘ohe Bay on the island of Oahu. Archaeological and historical evidences showed that the tsunami occurred sometime between 1040 and 1280 A.D.^[8]

A chant composed between 1500 and 1600 described a tsunami-like event occurring on the western coast of Molokai. The chant is believed to be the oldest record of a tsunami in Hawaii.

"The sun shines brightly at Kalaeola which sank into the sea. A huge wave came and killed its inhabitants, scattering them and leaving only Papala'au; their cries are all about.^[9]"

Future threat

At least 24 to 40 meters of slip has been accumulated since the earthquake of 1585 and it is possible for another event of a similar magnitude to occur. If a tsunami was generated, it would require just 4.5 hours of travel time to reach the Hawaiian Islands.^[10]

Evidence

Hawaii

A study of the northwestern coast of Kaua‘i in 2002 discovered evidence of a large tsunami in a layer of buried sand, similar to the tsunami deposits found after the 1946 earthquake.^[11]

Earlier in 2001, at Makauwahi Sinkhole in the Makauwahi Cave complex, on the southern coast of Kaua‘i, researchers uncovered a 0.8 to 1-meter layer of deposit during an excavation of the site. The sinkhole is 30 to 35 meters wide and walls 6 to 25 meters high. The allochthonous deposit, consisting of stones and fragmented aeolianite were sourced from a distant location, confirming the occurrence of a major tsunami-like event in the Hawaiian Islands. The state of these boulders, cobbles, gravel, and sand, severely fractured and angular, concluded that they formed during one intense event.^[12] Dating of the deposits presented a time period of 1430–1665 A.D..

In a 2014 study of the site led by Rhett Butler, researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, National Tropical Botanical Garden and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center found the same deposit, 0.8 meters thick. They also measured the bottom of the sinkhole at 7.2 meters above the mean sea level, and location of the sinkhole 100 meters from the coast. The deposit volume is also estimated to be 600 cubic meters.^[8]

Based on the location in which the deposit was found, the tsunami must be a very significant event. The layer deposited in the sinkhole was sourced by a tsunami much larger than anything generated by the largest Pacific earthquakes. The largest run-up height in modern times was from the 1960 Valdivia earthquake which tsunami run-up measured 3 meters. None of the recent tsunamis have been able to reach and inundate the Makauwahi Sinkhole, which lies 7.2 meters above sea level at a distance of 100 meters from the shore.^[8]

Another research in 2017 revisited the site of the sinkhole to radiocarbon date plant materials in the deposit and found that the tsunami inundation occurred between 1425 and 1660 A.D.^[10] Together with the required tsunami run-up heights, the tsunami may have been associated with the misdated Sanriku tsunami of 1586.

Elsewhere

The Sanriku orphan tsunami may have been associated with deposited materials in near Sendai City, Miyagi, which could not be explained by nearby earthquakes.^[10]^[13] Inscriptions on a monument at Tokura village said that the tsunami struck the northeastern coast of Japan with a height of 1 to 2 meters.^[10]

There is paleotsunami evidence in nine locations in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia to show that a tsunami occurred near the Cascadia subduction zone prior to the 1700 event. The next prior event in Cascadia was a less energetic tsunami event inferred to have taken place between 1402 and 1502, with an uncertainty of ± 20 years. This rules out Cascadia as the cause of the 1585 tsunami. Dating of the event however, strongly supported the Aleutian Islands as being the tsunami source.^[14]

The closest known historical earthquakes from 1585 to 1586 were the 1604 Arica, 1587 Guayllabamba and 1575 Valdivia earthquakes, which all generated tsunamis along the South American coast. However, no tsunamis from these events were ever measured on the Japanese coasts.^[10]

Paleotsunami studies on Sedanka Island near Amaknak Island found five large tsunami events before 1957. One of these tsunami deposits was found up to one kilometer inland and up to 18 meters above sea level. This tsunami event has been dated at 1530–1665 A.D.^[15]^[16]

Earthquake

The Aleutian Islands lie near a convergent plate boundary where the Pacific plate meets the North American plate. The location where the plates converge is marked on the ocean floor by the Aleutian Trench. The Pacific plate dives beneath the North American plate along the Aleutian subduction zone which extends for approximately 4,000 km. The subduction zone is a large thrust fault capable of generating large megathrust earthquakes, sometimes tsunamigenic. The 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake and 1964 Alaska earthquake, measuring 8.6 M_w  and 9.2 M_w  respectively, are examples of earthquakes on the subduction zone; both resulted in devastating tsunamis.^[17]^[18]

In the same 2014 study led by Butler, researchers simulated the tsunami from a 9.25 M_w earthquake in the eastern Aleutian Islands, west of the earthquake rupture. The rupture area is 100 km by 600 km with an average slip of 35 meters on the megathrust.^[8] Their model was found to be sufficient to inundate the sinkhole. Along the Pacific Northwest coast, the tsunami measured a maximum of 9 meters while the mean height was 3.5 meters.^[10] The orientation of the megathrust with respect to the Hawaiian Islands allowed for much directivity of the tsunami energy. The results of the model did not rule out the possibility of other distant tsunami source locations. However, such events would have to greatly exceed the fault slip seen in other historically large events.^[8]

References

^ National Geophysical Data Center. "Tsunami Event Information". National Geophysical Data Center / World Data Service: NCEI/WDS Global Historical Tsunami Database. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Retrieved 8 July 2021. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Yoshinobu Tsuji (2013). "Catalog of Distant Tsunamis Reaching Japan from Chile and Peru". Report of Tsunami Engineering. 30: 61–68. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.723.1716.
^ Evgueni A. Kulikov; Alexander B. Rabinovich; Richard E. Thomson (2005). "Estimation of Tsunami Risk for the Coasts of Peru and Northern Chile". Natural Hazards. 35 (2): 185–209. Bibcode:2005NatHa..35..185K. doi:10.1007/s11069-004-4809-3. S2CID 140620121.
^ ^a ^b Kenji Satake (2017). "Tsunami on Sanriku Coast in 1586: Orphan or Ghost Tsunami ?". Fall Meeting 2017. 2017. American Geophysical Union. Bibcode:2017AGUFMNH12A..08S. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
^ L. Dorbath; A. Cisternas; C. Dorbath (1990). "Assessment of the size of large and great historical earthquakes in Peru". Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. 80: 551–576. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
^ Kumiji Iida; Doak C Cox (1967). George Pararas-Carayannis (ed.). "PRELIMINARY CATALOG OF TSUNAMIS OCCURRING IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN" (PDF). Hawaii Institute of Geophysics. 67-10 (5). University of Hawaii.
^ ^a ^b Kenji Satake; Mohammad Heidarzadeh; Marco Quiroz; Rodrigo Cienfuegos (2020). "History and features of trans-oceanic tsunamis and implications for paleo-tsunami studies". Earth-Science Reviews. 202 (103112): 103112. Bibcode:2020ESRv..20203112S. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103112. S2CID 212778611. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Rhett Butler; David Burney; David Walsh (2014). "Paleotsunami evidence on Kaua'i and numerical modeling of a great Aleutian tsunami". Geophysical Research Letters. 41 (19): 6795–6802. Bibcode:2014GeoRL..41.6795B. doi:10.1002/2014GL061232.
^ James F. Lander; Patricia A. Lockridge (1989). United States Tsunamis: (including United States Possessions) : 1690-1988. Boulder, Colorado: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, National Geophysical Data Center. p. 265.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Rhett Butler; David A. Burney; Kenneth H. Rubin; David Walsh (2017). "The orphan Sanriku tsunami of 1586: new evidence from coral dating on Kaua'i". Natural Hazards. 88 (2): 797–819. Bibcode:2017NatHa..88..797B. doi:10.1007/s11069-017-2902-7. S2CID 134237666.
^ David A. Burney (2002). "Late Quaternary Chronology and Stratigraphy of Twelve Sites on Kaua'i". Radiocarbon. 44 (1). Cambridge University Press: 13–44. Bibcode:2002Radcb..44...13B. doi:10.1017/S003382220006464X.
^ Burney, David A.; James, Helen F.; Burney, Lida Pigott; Olson, Storrs L.; Kikuchi, William; Wagner, Warren L.; Burney, Mara; McCloskey, Deirdre; Kikuchi, Delores; Grady, Frederick V.; Gage II, Reginald; Nishek, Robert (November 2001). "Fossil evidence for a diverse biota from Kaua'i and its transformation since human arrival". Ecological Monographs. 71 (4): 615–641. doi:10.1890/0012-9615(2001)071[0615:FEFADB]2.0.CO;2. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
^ Yuki Sawai; Yushiro Fujii; Osamu Fujiwara; Takanobu Kamataki; Junko Komatsubara; Yukinobu Okamura; Kenji Satake; Masanobu Shishikura (2008). "Marine incursions of the past 1500 years and evidence of tsunamis at Suijin-numa, a coastal lake facing the Japan Trench" (PDF). The Holocene. 18 (4): 517–528. Bibcode:2008Holoc..18..517S. doi:10.1177/0959683608089206. S2CID 55355007. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
^ Robert Peters; Bruce Jaffe; Guy Gelfenbaum (2007). "Distribution and sedimentary characteristics of tsunami deposits along the Cascadia margin of western North America". Sedimentary Geology. 200 (3–4): 372–386. Bibcode:2007SedG..200..372P. doi:10.1016/j.sedgeo.2007.01.015. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
^ Witter, R. C.; Carver, G. A.; Bender, A. M.; Briggs, R. W.; Gelfenbaum, G. R.; Koehler, R. D. (2013). "Six large tsunamis in the past ~1700 years at Stardust Bay, Sedanka Island, Alaska". Abstract NH44A-08 Presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU. 2013. Bibcode:2013AGUFMNH44A..08W. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
^ Witter, Robert C.; Carver, Gary A.; Briggs, Richard W.; Gelfenbaum, Guy; Koehler, Richard D.; La Selle, SeanPaul; Bender, Adrian M.; Engelhart, Simon E.; Hemphill-Haley, Eileen; Hill, Troy D. (2016). "Unusually large tsunamis frequent a currently creeping part of the Aleutian megathrust". Geophysical Research Letters. 43 (1): 76–84. Bibcode:2016GeoRL..43...76W. doi:10.1002/2015GL066083. S2CID 131231692.
^ "M 8.6 – 1946 Aleutian Islands (Unimak Island) Earthquake, Alaska". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
^ "M 9.2 – 1964 Prince William Sound Earthquake, Alaska". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 9 July 2021.

v t e Historical earthquakes (1000 AD–1500 AD)
11th-century	1033 Jordan Valley 1038 Dingxiang 1068 Near East 1088 Tmogvi
12th-century	1114 Marash 1117 Verona 1138 Aleppo 1139 Ganja 1157 Hama 1169 Sicily 1170 Syria 1185 East Midlands
13th-century	1202 Syria 1222 Brescia 1222 Cyprus 1269 Cilicia 1275 British 1290 Zhili 1293 Kamakura
14th-century	1303 Crete 1303 Hongdong 1343 Naples 1348 Friuli 1349 Apennine 1356 Basel 1361 Shōhei 1382 Dover Straits
15th-century	1420 Caldera 1428 Catalonia 1456 Central Italy Haowhenua 1461 L'Aquila 1475 Tenochtitlan 1481 Rhodes 1491 Cyprus 1498 Meiō
16th-century	1505 Lo Mustang 1509 Constantinople 1511 Idrija 1513 Marash 1522 Almería 1522 Vila Franca 1536 Xichang 1531 Lisbon 1555 Kashmir 1556 Shaanxi 1570 Concepción 1570 Ferrara 1575 San Salvador 1575 Valdivia 1580 Dover Straits 1582 Ancuancu 1584 Aigle 1585 Aleutian Islands 1586 Tenshō 1586 Lima–Callao 1596 Keichō–Fushimi 1590 Neulengbach

v t e Earthquakes in the United States
Historical	1585 Aleutian Islands 1638 New Hampshire 1663 Charlevoix 1700 Cascadia 1755 Cape Ann 1783 New Jersey 1811–12 New Madrid 1812 San Juan Capistrano 1812 Santa Barbara 1838 San Andreas 1857 Fort Tejon 1865 Memphis 1867 Manhattan, Kansas 1868 Hawaii 1868 Hayward 1870 Charlevoix 1871 Lānaʻi 1872 Owens Valley 1872 North Cascades 1882 Fort Collins 1886 Charleston 1887 Sonora 1892 Laguna Salada 1892 Vacaville–Winters 1895 Charleston 1898 Mare Island 1899 San Jacinto
20th century	1901 Richfield 1906 San Francisco 1906 Aleutian Islands 1909 Wabash River 1914 Reno 1915 Imperial Valley 1915 Pleasant Valley 1916 Irondale 1918 San Jacinto 1921 Sevier Valley 1925 Montana 1925 Santa Barbara 1927 Lompoc 1931 Valentine 1932 Eureka 1932 Cedar Mountain 1933 Long Beach 1934 Hansel Valley 1935 Helena 1936 State Line 1940 El Centro 1940 New Hampshire 1944 Cornwall–Massena 1946 Aleutian Islands 1947 Wisconsin 1948 Desert Hot Springs 1949 Olympia 1952 Kern County 1954 Churchill County 1957 Andreanof Islands 1957 San Francisco 1958 Huslia 1958 Lituya Bay 1959 Hebgen Lake 1962 Cache Valley 1964 Alaska 1965 Rat Islands 1965 Puget Sound 1968 Borrego Mountain 1968 Illinois 1969 Santa Rosa 1971 San Fernando 1973 Point Mugu 1975 Near Islands 1975 Morris 1975 Hawaii 1979 Coyote Lake 1979 Imperial Valley 1980 Eureka 1981 Westmorland 1983 Coalinga 1983 Borah Peak 1983 Kaoiki 1984 Morgan Hill 1986 North Palm Springs 1986 Chalfant Valley 1987 Whittier Narrows 1987 Imperial Valley 1989 Loma Prieta 1990 Upland 1991 Sierra Madre 1992 Joshua Tree 1992 Cape Mendocino 1992 Landers 1992 Big Bear 1992 St. George 1993 Scotts Mills 1993 Klamath Falls 1994 Northridge 1995 Marathon 1998 Pymatuning 1999 Hector Mine 2000 Yountville
21st century	2001 Nisqually 2002 Denali 2003 Alabama 2003 San Simeon 2006 Gulf of Mexico 2006 Kiholo Bay 2008 Illinois 2008 Chino Hills 2008 Reno 2008 Wells 2010 Eureka 2010 Baja California 2010 Indiana 2011 Colorado 2011 Virginia 2011 Oklahoma 2013 Port Alexander 2014 La Habra 2014 Aleutian Islands 2014 Southeast Alaska 2014 South Napa 2016 Oklahoma 2018 Alaska 2018 Hawaii 2018 Anchorage 2018 Southern Appalachian 2019 Ridgecrest 2020 Salt Lake City 2020 Central Idaho 2020 Monte Cristo Range 2020 Sparta 2021 Chignik 2022 Ferndale 2023 Texas 2024 New Jersey
Swarms	2001 Enola 2008 Reno 2010–11 Guy–Greenbrier 2012 Brawley 2009–present Oklahoma 2019 Ridgecrest