ENHG Lecture: Tsunami History of Oman with Dr. Gösta Hoffmann

*Kindly note that this talk will take place on Zoom, and a link will be sent to all those registered.

About the Talk:

The coastline of Oman borders the north-western Indian Ocean. Although the country is sparsely populated in general, the population and critical infrastructure are concentrated along the coastline. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami showed that only the southern part of the coastline is vulnerable in terms of tsunami inundation from this far-field location. However, a bigger threat is related to the Makran Subduction Zone (MSZ). The hazard potential of the MSZ is not well understood and the instrumentally recorded seismicity is concentrated in the east. The only recorded historical earthquake-related tsunami occurred on 27.11.1945.

We carried out an interdisciplinary approach to reconstruct the tsunami history and to quantify past tsunami events. We interviewed last surviving eye-witnesses concerning the 1945 event and used traditional geological methods to reconstruct older events. As a result, we are able to show that the observed tsunami of 1945 was not the most severe, as a tsunami event around 1000 years ago moved large blocks and boulders along the coast. Furthermore, archaeological evidence suggests a widespread impact of the event.

About the speaker:

Dr. Gösta Hoffmann is head of the Environmental Geology group at Bonn University in Germany. As a geologist he has worked in Oman for many years, starting in 2008 when he was appointed at the German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech). His works concentrates on coastal evolution. Gösta is principal investigator of the UNESCO IGCP project “Sea-level change from minutes to millennia”. For his work in Oman he was awarded with the National Research Award by the Research Council in 2015.