Has the Mediterranean Sea felt the March 11th, 2011, Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake?

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria - Ponte P. Bucci Cubo 31C, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy, EU
² Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia - Roma, Italy, EU
³ British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council - Cambridge, UK, EU
⁴ IPCF/CNR, Università della Calabria - Rende (CS), Italy, EU

^a antonio.vecchio@fis.unical.it

Received: 1 February 2012
Accepted: 10 May 2012

Abstract

The possibility that the tsunami, generated as a consequence of the large Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake of March 11th 2011, could be recorded by the tide gauge stations located in the Mediterranean Sea has been investigated. We find two kinds of transient signatures which should be attributed to the far-field destabilizing effect of the tsunami on the usual tidal components: 1) the excitation of a broad spectrum of frequency fluctuations, superimposed to the diurnal and semidiurnal tidal components, 2) the change of amplitude of the low-frequency tidal components in the Mediterranean, related to the sea surface fluctuation perhaps caused by the direct transmission of the tsunami across Gibraltar.