Phases Representing Source Lengths of Tsunami in Tide Gauge Records

We identified a phase representing the source length of tsunami’s in the tide gauge records around Japan. This phase was observed at tide stations, located in the direction of the long axis of the sources, for four large tsunamis: 1964 Niigata, 1968 Tokachi-oki, 1983 Nihonkaichubu, and 1993 Hokkaido-nanseioki. The phase consists of two continuous crests starting as the initial arrival and has a time length of 15–47 minutes. This is the time required to propagate across the source area along the long axis. Strong evidence that the phase is generated at the source is the good correlation between waveform observed at one side and time-inversed waveform at another side. The correlation results from the instantaneous generation of the source. The source lengths of 74–254 km were obtained under an assumption of sea depths at the sources and verified to coincide with ones within a relative error of 15% that were previously obtained by other methods.