Modeling a possible holocenic landslide-induced tsunami at Stromboli volcano, Italy

Stromboli is a volcanic island in the Aeolian archipelago, located in SE Ty rrhenian sea, Italy. It is characterised by a steep depression along the NW flank of the volcano called Sciara del Fuoco, that is interpreted as the p artially filled scar of a large flank collapse that took place circa 5000 y ears ago. The large volume of material estimated to be involved in the coll apse was very likely responsible for the generation of big ocean waves. Thi s paper presents some numerical simulations concerning a tsunami scenario t o the Holocene event. For the landslide we used a Lagrangian model based on the discretization of the total sliding mass in blocks of constant volume subjected to external and internal forces. Three possible slide evolutions are considered, differing by the modality of the block-block interaction. I n all three cases the tsunami is simulated using a finite-element (FE) mode l based on the non-linear hydrodynamic equations with the addition of a for cing term to account for the excitation of sea waves by the landslide. Wave propagation and time histories all around the island are computed. The tsu nami results to be very energetic. Though most of the energy is radiated se award, nonetheless very huge waves, in the order of tens of meters, attack the island, this result being almost independent from the landslide model u sed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.