Central University Team Identifies Submarine Landslides as Key to Noto Earthquake's Abnormal Tsunami

According to the Central News Agency, a research team from National Central University has identified that submarine landslides near Toyama Bay were the key cause of the abnormal tsunami during the 2024 Noto earthquake. The findings were published in the international journal 'Engineering Geology'. The team, led by Professor Wu Tso-ren and Professor Kenji Satake, investigated why the tsunami arrived so quickly. While theoretical models suggested it would take about 10 minutes for the tsunami to travel from the Noto Peninsula to Toyama Bay, it was actually recorded within 2-3 minutes of the earthquake. The team found that while traditional tsunami models assumed seabed displacement was 'instantaneous,' the actual process of sliding, accelerating, and decelerating during submarine landslides significantly influenced tsunami generation. Because these landslides occurred only a few kilometers from the shore, the tsunami reached the coast rapidly. This result highlights the importance of including submarine landslide risks in tsunami warning assessments, not just fault movements. The lead author, Lo Ming-jen, was a third-year undergraduate student in the Department of Earth Sciences at National Central University at the time of the research.