Identification of the source fault of the 1908 Messina Earthquake through tsunami modelling. Is it a possible task?

The 1908 Messina Straits tsunami is the last catastrophic event that hit the Italian coast. The parent earthquake may be considered one of the strongest shocks reported in Italian seismic catalogues. Several source models have been proposed in the literature that are quite different with regard to almost all the fault parameters. The aim of this work is to evaluate whether tsunami data can add reliable information for the identification of the fault mechanism of this earthquake. Tsunamis generated by two of the faults proposed in the literature were simulated via finite-element modelling in a former work (see Piatanesi et al., 1998): the results were in good agreement with the observations as regards the polarity of the first wave, whereas a relevant disagreement was found as far as run-up data were concerned. In this paper, that may be considered the continuation of the previous work, we focus on a particular fault, the one proposed by Capuano et al. (1988), and simulate the consequent tsunami adding two new features to possibly improve the agreement with run-up observations: i) an algorithm allowing for the effect of the sea bottom bathymetry on the tsunami initial condition, and ii) a heterogeneous slip distribution on the fault. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.