Historical Tsunami Database for the Pacific, 47 B.C - 2001

The Historical Tsunami Database for the Pacific (HTDB/PAC) was established and is being maintained by the Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory (NTL) of the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics ICM&MG, Siberian Division of Russian Academy of Sciences since 1991. The initial data collection from the existing tsunami catalogs and primary publications was made under the ETDB (Expert Tsunami Database) Project supported by the Russian Foundation of Basic Research (grants 93-05-14499 and 95-07-19335) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (contracts SC/RP 207.518.4 and SC/RP 207.566.6). The database can be accessed online at: "http://tsun.sscc.ru/htdbpac/"

The database consists of the two main sets of observational data parametric source data ( event data ) and observed or measured run-up heights ( run-up data ). The first set contains the source and some integrated tsunami parameters for almost 1490 historical tsunamigenic events occurred in the Pacific (within the area between 65S to 65N and 80E to 50W) from 47 B.C up to the present time. A set of parameters includes the full date (Year, Mo, Da) and time ( Hr, Mn, Sec) of an event, position of its source ( Lat, Long), the source depth Depth, the basic set of source magnitudes (mb, Ms, Mw, Mt ), tsunami intensity I (on the Soloviev-Imamura scale), tsunami magnitude m (on the Imamira-Iida scale), the maximum observed run-up value Hmax, the total number of available run-up and tide-gauge measurements N, damage code D, the number of reported fatalities due to an event F, a cause of the tsunami C , validity of an event V, warning status WS (where available), tsunamigenic region code TR, the basic reference BR and a brief description of the source region.

The second set contains nearly 8000 coastal run-up observations and tide-gauge measurements of wave heights. This part of the database was initially imported from the NGDC Worldwide Tsunami Database (Lockridge, Dunbar, 1996) and in its considerable part it is still fully identical to the NGDC run-up data file. Major improvements and corrections were made for the Kuril-Kamchatka region (within the ETDB/PAC Project) and for the US Pacific coast including Alaska and Hawaii (within the HTDB/US Project). Also, we have added all the accessible for us measurements of wave heights for the recent Pacific tsunamis of 1992-1998 obtained in the post-event field surveys. For each wave height record, a set of displayed parameters includes the 3-level name of the site (Region name, Area name and Site name), its geographical coordinates (Lat, Long), the type of measurement T ( R - run-up, T - tide-gauge) and the observed run-up height or the double amplitude H (in meters).