Tsunami run-up associated with co-seismic thrust slip produced by the 2011 M w 9.0 Off Pacific Coast of Tohoku earthquake, Japan Aiming Lin a,b,c,n , Ryoya Ikuta b,c , Gang Rao a a Graduate School of Science and Technology, Shizuoka University, Ohya 836, Shizuoka 422-8529, Japan b Institute of Geosciences, Faculty of Science, Shizuoka University, Ohya 836, Shizuoka 422-8529, Japan c Center for Integrated Research and Education of Natural Hazards, Shizuoka University, Ohya 836, Shizuoka 422-8529, Japan article info Article history: Received 7 August 2011 Received in revised form 17 April 2012 Accepted 19 April 2012 Editor: P. Shearer Keywords: 2011 M w 9.0 Off Pacific Coast of Tohoku (Japan) earthquake tsunami run-up height co-seismic thrusting slip GPS observation sawtooth coastline abstract The 2011 M w 9.0 Off Pacific Coast of Tohoku (Japan) earthquake generated a violent tsunami and unexpected high tsunami wave that caused great substantial damage and 18,940 fatalities along the east–northeast coast of Honshu Island of Japan. Analyses of high-resolution remote sensing imagery data acquired before and after the earthquake, combined with the results of field investigations, reveal that (i) run-up height of the tsunami (i.e., the inland limit of tsunami) was spatially variable, ranging from o3 m to  35 m, and (ii) large run-up heights occurred mainly in the areas between Ishinomaki ( 38.21N) and Miyako city ( 40.21N), close to the epicenter of 2011 M w 9.0 earthquake, and showed a gradual decrease away from this region. Combined with the ground motion direction revealed by GPS and seismic data, the distribution of run-up height is consistent with that of ground displacement (calculated from GPS observations) and that of co-seismic thrusting slip on the source fault plane along the plate boundary (calculated from the seismic inversion). The results of numerical simulation of tsunami propagation show that (i) the distributions of tsunami height along the northeast Honshu coastline are constrained mainly by thrusting slip on the source fault plane; and (ii) the height of tsunami wave in special areas was strongly affected by the sawtooth geometry of the coastline. & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction On 11 March 2011, at 02:46:23 PM local time 2011, a M w 9.0 earthquake (the 2011 Off Pacific Coast of Tohoku earthquake) occurred offshore from northeast Japan, resulting in extensive damage throughout east–northeast Japan, including  15,856 deaths,  3084 missing and  6025 injured (National Police Agency of Japan, 2012). The epicenter (38.031N, 143.151E) is located on the plate boundary between the Pacific and North American plates,  130 km east of Sendai city, Miyagi Prefecture (Fig. 1, Japan Meteorological Agency, 2011). Seismic inversion results reveal a maximum thrust slip of 420 m on a 500-km-long fault plane (e.g., USGS, 2011; Ide et al., 2011; Fujii et al., 2011; Koketsu et al., 2011; Yagi and Fukahata, 2011; Yagi and Nishimura, 2011). The large slip along the plate boundary pro- duced a violent tsunami that reached far inland and resulted in  17,500 fatalities (  92% of the combined deaths and missing resulting from the tsunami; National Police Agency of Japan, 2012), destroying many villages and fishing ports along the north–south striking coast that runs parallel to the plate bound- ary. The inland limit of inundation (i.e., the run-up; see below for a definition of this term) caused by the tsunami is a key parameter for further assessing the vulnerability of the stricken region to tsunamis and dynamic processes of the tsunami. The present study area, between Sendai and Miyako, is characterized by a sawtooth coastline (known as the Ria coast), along which the cliffs, bays, and estuaries are well developed (Fig. 1b). The tsunami inundated a wide corridor along the sawtooth coast, leading to the damming of many rivers in intermountain areas and resulting in serious secondary damage after the main shock (Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami Joint Survey Group (TETJSG), 2011); however, the general distribution of the inland limit of inundation remains unclear because access to the affected region was restricted due to damaged roads and the radiation leaking from the damaged nuclear power plant at Fukushima (Fig. 1b). Such problems regarding access can be overcome by analyzing remote sensing data, which provide an effective overview of the extent of inundation over a wide area. In the present study, we used remote sensing data to analyze the distribution of run-up height of tsunami caused by the 2011 M w 9.0 earthquake. Specially, we used Panchromatic Remote- sensing Instrument (PRISM) and Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR 2) data from the Advanced Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl Earth and Planetary Science Letters 0012-821X/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2012.04.047 n Corresponding author at: Institute of Geosciences, Faculty of Science, Shizuoka University, Ohya 836, Shizuoka 422-8529, Japan. E-mail address: slin@ipc.shizuoka.ac.jp (A. Lin). Earth and Planetary Science Letters 337–338 (2012) 121–132