Forearc crustal faults as tsunami sources in the upper  plate of the Lesser Antilles subduction zone: the  case study of the Morne Piton fault system

Philippon, Melody; Roger, Jean; Lebrun, Jean-Frédéric; Thinon, Isabelle; Foix, Océane; Mazzotti, Stéphane; Gutscher, Marc-André; Montheil, Leny; Cornée, Jean-Jacques

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3129-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3129-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3129-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 9

Research article

|

19 Sep 2024

Research article |

| 19 Sep 2024

Forearc crustal faults as tsunami sources in the upper plate of the Lesser Antilles subduction zone: the case study of the Morne Piton fault system

Melody Philippon, Jean Roger, Jean-Frédéric Lebrun, Isabelle Thinon, Océane Foix, Stéphane Mazzotti, Marc-André Gutscher, Leny Montheil, and Jean-Jacques Cornée

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3129-2024-supplement

Data sets

SISMANTILLES 1 cruise A. Hirn https://doi.org/10.17600/1080060

SISMANTILLES 2 cruise M. Laigle et al. https://doi.org/10.17600/7010020

Litto3D® - Saint-Barthélemy 2019 Shom-IGN https://services.data.shom.fr/geonetwork/srv/fre/catalog.search#/metadata/BATHYMETRIE_LITTO3D_GUAD_2016.xml

KASHALLOW 2 cruise Jean Frédéric Lebrun https://doi.org/10.17600/9020010

AGUADOMAR cruise C. Deplus https://doi.org/10.17600/98010120

Model code and software

The Generic Mapping Tools Version 6 (https://www.generic-mapping-tools.org) P. Wessel et al. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GC008515

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Short summary

Using novel geophysical datasets, we reassess the slip rate of the Morne Piton fault (Lesser Antilles) at 0.2 mm yr⁻¹ by dividing by four previous estimations and thus increasing the earthquake time recurrence and lowering the associated hazard. We evaluate a plausible magnitude for a potential seismic event of M_w 6.5 ± 0.5. Our multi-segment tsunami model representative of the worst-case scenario gives an overview of tsunami generation if all the fault segments ruptured together.