The 1956 earthquake and tsunami in Amorgos, Greece

The 1956 earthquake and tsunami in Amorgos, Greece , , , , Geophysical Journal International, Volume 178, Issue 3, September 2009, Pages 1533–1554, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2009.04237.x he earthquake of 1956 July 09 near Amorgos Island in the southcentral Aegean Sea (Fig. 1) was the largest one to strike Greece in the 20th century, with a magnitude of 7.8, as computed by B. Gutenberg at Pasadena and reported by the International Seismological Summary (ISS). It resulted in 53 deaths and considerable damage, notably on the island of Santorini, and generated a local tsunami affecting the shores of the Cyclades and Dodecanese Islands, Crete and the Turkish coast of Asia Minor, with run-up values of 30, 20, and 10 m reported on the southern coast of Amorgos, on Astypalaia and Folegandros, respectively. Such values are the highest reported in the 20th century over the whole Mediterranean Basin (Solov’ev et al. 2000). This led Galanopoulos (1957) and later Ambraseys (1960) to propose a submarine landslide (or a series of landslides) as the source of the tsunami, based on the excessive amplitude and general heterogeneity of run-up in the epicentral area, properties later interpreted quantitatively by Okal & Synolakis (2004) as robust proxies for tsunamis of landslide origin in the near field. Read more:https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/178/3/1533/595801?login=false