GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 26, NO.

19, PAGES 3009-3012, OCTOBER 1, 1999

The landslide-generated tsunami of November 3, 1994

in $kagway Harbor, Alaska: A case study
AlexanderB. Rabinovich,
1'2RichardE. Thomson,
2 EvgueniA. Kulikov,
Brian D. Bornhold i and Isaac V Fine 1
9

'

Abstract.
We examine the origin and behavior of
the catastrophic tsunami that impacted Skagway Harbor at the head of Taiya Inlet, Alaska, on November
3, 1994. Geomorphologicand tide gauge data, com-

Taiya Inlet (Fig. 1), and that the dockfailure was a

secondary effect of this "offshore" slide. The main arguments for the alternative generation mechanism are
that the wavesappear to be too large to have been probined with numerical simulation of the event, reveal duced by the dock collapse and associated submarine
that the tsunami was generated by an underwater land- slide and that the spatial scales of the collapsed dock
slide formed during the collapseof a cruise-ship dock were too small to account for the observed3-min period
undergoing construction. Use of a fine-grid model for and 1-h duration of the observed oscillations.
SkagwayHarbor and a coarse-gridmodel for Taiya Inlet
The purpose of this paper is to examine the 1994
enables us to explain many of the eyewitness accounts SkagwayHarbor event in the context of landslide-generand to reproduce the dominant oscillations in the tide ated tsunamis in steep coastal fjords and to show that
gaugerecord, includingthe persistent(,- 1 h) 3-min all aspects of the tsunami waves are readily explained
oscillation in Skagway Harbor. The occurrenceof the by the dock failure and subsequentsubmarine slide.
landslide is linked to critical overloading of the slope
materials

at a time

of extreme

low tide.

Morphology and Flow Slide Processes

SkagwayHarbor is a drowned hanging valley branch-

Introduction

ing off Taiya Inlet (Fig. 1). The resultsof a detailed

geomorphologic
study of the harbor (Terra Surveys,
At 1912h AlaskaStandardTime (AST) on Novem- pers. comm., 1998) followingthe dockfailure are in

ber 3, 1994, a 250 m section of the Pacific and Arctic

good agreementwith results of an independentgeomor-

Railway and NavigationCompany(PARN) Dock un- phologicexaminationby Cornforthand Lowell [1996].

der constructionon the eastern side of SkagwayHarbor

(Fig. 1) slid rapidlyinto the water. The eventoccurred

about 25 min after an extremelow tide of-1.3 m (relative to meanlowerlow water), the lowesttide sincethe
dock constructionbegan[Lander, 1996; Cornforthand
Lowell,1996],and wasaccompanied
by a seriesof large-

The upper slope that failed beneath the PARN Dock

59*
27'30"

amplitude tsunami waves estimated by eyewitnessesto

be 5-6 m high in the inlet and 9-11 m at the shore-

line [Lander,1996;Kulikov et al., 1996;Raichlenet al.,

1996]. A NOAA analogtide gauge (Fig. 1) recorded mainly 3-min waveswith maximum trough-to-crest
waveheightsof 2 m. The landslideand accompanying
tsunami

claimed one life and caused an estimated

$21

milliondamage[Lander,1996;Raichlenet al., 1996].

It hasbeenshown[Lander,1996;Kulikovet al., 1996;
Cornforthand Lowell,1996;Raichlenet al., 1996]that

59
27'00"

the November 1994 tsunami likely originated from the

failure of the PARN Dock which, in turn, was linked
to critical overloadingof the slope materials at a time
of extreme low tide. An alternative explanation pro-

Tide Gauge

PARN

T a i y a f

vided by Mader [1997]and Kowalik[1997]is that the

Inlet

waves were generated by a massivesubmarine slide in

Dock/

Slide
Area

%% i09mf

59*
26'30"

0.5
km
/

International Tsunami Research, Inc., Sidney, British

Columbia, Canada.
135019 '
135o21 ,
135o20 ,
2Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Institute of Ocean Sciences, Sidney, British Columbia, Canada.
Figure 1. Northern part of Taiya Inlet, showingSkag-

way Harbor and dock slide area. Dashed line denotes

Copyright1999by theAmericanGeophysical
Union.
Papernumber1999GL002334.
0094-8276/99/1999GL002334505.00

the limit

of the harbor

model

domain.

Inset

shows the

location of the inlet model domain and the hypotheti-

cal slideproposedby Mader [1997]and Kowalik[1997]

(numbersgiveassumeduplifts and subsidences
(m))
3009

3010

RABINOVICH

ET AL.- LANDSLIDE-GENERATED

had gradients of 300 to 350. The sediment section

consistedof grey, soft-to-medium stiff, sandy, slightly
clayey silt interstratified with minor variations of sand
and clay. These marine sediments were underlain by
very coarse colluvium in the nearshore area and by

TSUNAMI

8(m)

iscc

-2

-4
! sc

steeplydippingbedrockfarther downthe slope [Cornforth and Lowell, 1996].

The failure took place after part of the mid-section of
the original dock had been removedduring construction
and replaced with four 10-m wide cellular bulkheads

IOscc

10scc

(cells). At the time of the event,pilingswerestill being

removedfrom the empty cellsand only minor backfilling
had been initiated. Some water was trapped inside the
cells above the tidal level. The failure appears to have
begun in the vicinity of the cells and to have swept
rapidly southward along the original dock, reaching its

50sec

southern limit a short distance beyond the dock. The

flow slide accelerated down the steep slope of the fjord

and was diverted southwardsthrough the trough at the

base of the slope into Taiya Inlet. Sediment was eroded
from the trough and carried along with the flow slide,
resultingin the deepeningof the trough by more than 20

m locally(Fig. 2). A similarfailure had taken placeon

October29, 1966(alsoat extremelowtide) immediately
south of the original dock as a result of fill construction
[Cornforthand owett,1996].
Numerical

Simulation

Figure 3. Animation frames from the harbor model

simulations at 1, 10, and 50 s after the dock failure.

(left panels)Movementof the slide body; and (right

panels)propagationof the tsunami waves. The initial
tsunamiconsistsof a leadingcrest (red) followedby a
trough (blue).

We havesimulatedlandslide-generatedwavesin Skagway Harbor using a three-dimensionalnumerical model

The Skagway Harbor model was used to determine

the wave structure immediately following the PARN
proposedby Jian# and eBlond
[1994].The modelwas Dock collapse. Basedon data from Terra SurveysInc.
generalizedto includethe subaerialslide and actual bot- (pers. comm.,1998)and Cornforthand Lowell[1996],
tom topography[Fine et al., 1998]. The modelstarts wetake the slidedensityto be 2.0 g cm-a, slideviscosfrom rest usingmeasuredpropertiesof the landslideand ity to be 0.05 m2 s-, and assumethat the initial slide
establishedequations of motion for both the waves and covereda rectangulararea of 330 m x 160 m (Fig. 1)
for a viscous landslide

with

full slide-wave

interactions

with parabolic cross-sectionsfor both horizontal axes.

landslide.
A finite-difference
method
was
used to solve the non-linear shallow water equations, The mean thicknessof the slide body was assumedto
with a one-dimensional radiation condition applied at be 15 m, in accordancewith the estimated slide volume
of 0.8 x 106 na. The subaerial slide accountedfor 10%
the open boundary.
submarine

of the total slide volume. The localizedSkagwayHarbor model coversa 260 x 160 grid having grid steps

Ax = Ay: 5 m and time steps At = 0.0167 s.

Figure 3 showssnapshotsof the modeledslide body
movementand associatedslide-generatedsurfacewaves.
The dynamicsof the computedslidemotion correspond

well to the results of the geomorphologic

study presentedin the previoussection(Fig. 2). The leading
wave, propagating in front of the slide, arrived at the
ferry dockand NOAA tide gaugesite as a positivewave

(crest),in agreement
with thetidegaugerecord(cf. Kulikove! al. [1996];Lander[1996]),and with the results
of the laboratorymodelingby Raichlenet al. [1996].In
contrast, the hypothetical massiveslide in Taiya Inlet

proposedby Mader [1997]and Kowalik[1997]causesa

trough to arrive first at the harbor site. To account

for the observedleadingcrestin the N OAA tide gauge

recordfor November3, 1994,Kowalik[1997]hasto rely
on an analysisby Nottingham[1997]whichclaimsthat
the leading crest was associatedwith "... an almost
instantaneousatmosphericpressurechange... of two
Figure 2. Depth changes(m) in the area of the dock inchesof Mercury ... causedby the large crest wave"
failure. The thick solid line marks the main slide area
in TaiyaInlet (twoinchesof Mercurym 67 mb). Wefurused for the extended Taiya Inlet model. The dashed ther note that the surfacewavespropagatemuchfaster
line marks the subaerial part of the slide.
than the slidemoves(cf. Fig. 3) and there is no pos-

RABINOVICH

ET AL'

LANDSLIDE-GENERATED

TSUNAMI
1.0

sibility of resonancecoupling(in contradictionto the

assumptionby Kowalik [1997]). The lead wave crest
wasfollowedby a broadwavetrough (Fig. 4a).

Tsunami Spectra and Energy Decay

The localized Skagway Harbor model is limited because simulated waves are allowed to escape without
reflection through the open boundary at the entrance
to the harbor. In reality, abrupt changesin the domain
width and water depth at the harbor entrance will reflect wavesback into the harbor to produce standing
oscillations.These abrupt changespresumablyaccount
for the protracted "ringing"of the tsunami wavesrecorded by the tide gauge. We have examined these effects
by increasingthe computational domain to include the

northern half of Taiya Inlet (Fig. 1, inset). The extended model has grid dimensions763 x 311, grid steps
Ax = Ay = 10 m and time step At = 0.0385 s. Two
different

initial

source domains

have been used for this

3011

104
95%

,o102

,,

ed- S'm
lat
u

{no'adjustment)

\..,'11

lu .........
Simulated
(adjusted
for3/4turn)
I

. i . ,.1

Frequency (cpm)

extendedTaiya Inlet model: (1) The rectangularslide Figure 5. Spectra of observedand simulated tsunami
used in the previous section for the Skagway Harbor

records in Skagway Harbor. The inset shows the ad-

domain,and (2) a morerealisticslidedomainbasedon mittance function for the tide gaugewith 3/4-turn valve
data from Terra Surveys(Fig. 2). The slidevolumes opening(from Raichlenet al. [1996]).

(m 0.8x 106ma) andresults

forbothmodels
aresimilar,

with model(2) yieldingwaveheightsabout15%higher

than model(i).
The modelsimulationof the NOAA tide gaugerecord
(Fig. 4b) is similar to the observedsea level record
(Fig. 4a) with two major differences.First, the simulated waveheightsare about 2.5 timesgreaterthan observedand second,the simulatedrecordscontainsignificant high-frequencyoscillationswhich are absentin the

bubbler tide gauge of the type used in Skagway. Results show that the dynamic responseof the gauge is
a function of the needle valve opening located at the
end of a gas-filled tube. We used the calibration curve

(admittancefunction) for a valve openingof 3/4 turn

(Fig. 5) which, accordingto NOAA [Raichlenet al.,
1996],is the nominalsettingfor the gauge. The direct

observedrecord. Thesedifferencesappearto be related and inverted Fourier transforms allowed us to "correct"

to the responsecharacteristics
of the gauge. Raichlenet the simulated sea level recordsby mimicking the effect
al. [1996]presenta laboratorycalibrationof a nitrogen of the gauge opening. The correctedsimulated record
is presentedin Fig. 4c and the spectra for the observed,
simulated and adjusted recordsare presentedin Fig. 5.
Observed

(tide
gauge
record)
i

_(b)

Simulated
(no adjustment)

Adjustment of the simulated waveseffectively suppresses the high-frequencyoscillationsexcept at the beginning of the record. For the actual tide gauge record,
high-frequencyoscillationsat the leading edge of the
tsunami would have been damped by the non-linear
gauge-responseeffects.
An encouraging feature of our model is the close

agreementbetweenthe correctedsealevelrecords(Fig.
4c) and the observedsea level record(Fig. 4a). The
fundamental observedperiod of 3.0 min agreeswell with

the computedperiodfor the dominantoscillations(Fig.

5). Smallerwaveheightsof the simulated3-rainoscillai

_(c)

Simulated
(adjustedfor 3/4 turn)

-1

19

20

November3, 1994 AST (hr)

Figure 4. Observedand simulatedtide gaugerecords

for the NOAA site. (a) Observedtide gaugerecordafter subtractionof the astronomical
tides;(b) simulated
water levelrecordsfrom the numericalmodel;(c) as in
(b) but correctedfor a a/4-turn valveopening.

tions and the presenceof high-frequencyoscillationsin

the adjustedrecord(Fig. 4b) but not in the observed

record(Fig. 4a) suggestthat the admittanceamplitude
of the NOAA gaugeis steeperthan shownin Fig. 5.
The observedresidual(nontidal)oscillationsand the
simulated oscillations adjusted to the 3/4-turn valve
opening were used to analyze the heights and periods
of individual wavesand to estimate the Q-factor for the

harbor motions;Q = r/ST, where5 is the decaycoefficient and T is the wave period. The estimated Q values
for the dominant oscillationswere large for model and

observations
(Fig. 6). Specifically,
Q = 24, 5 m 2.7 h-
for the observedwavesand Q 21, 5 m 3.0 h- for
the simulated waves,suggestingthat wave energy leaks
slowly from Skagway Harbor into Taiya Inlet. The

3012

RABINOVICH

ET AL.: LANDSLIDE-GENERATED

TSUNAMI

only does this inverted barometer effect not apply at

'a, ,

suchshorttime scale(tensof seconds)but alsopressure

1= 2.7hr'1 I

150
r]l,'[3
Q=
24I X&
=
hr"l

Q=3.0
21
[

changesof this magnitude can only be associatedwith

major atmospheric phenomena, none of which were ob-

0/

served at the time of the tsunami event. Our model of

the submarine landslide associated with the dock failure
I

20

in Skagway Harbor accounts for all aspects of the observed wave field without any additional assumptions
concerning simultaneous, hypothetical geophysical or
hydrometeorologicalevents in the adjoining inlet.

References

November3, 14 AST (hr)

igure

6. Variation in observedand simulated wave

heights(top pane]s)and periods(lowerpane]s)at the

time of the Skagway Harbor tsunami. Estimates are

basedon successive
creststo troughs (triangles) and
troughsto crests(squares).The fitted exponentialfunctions approximate the wave height decay.

Cornforth, D. H., and J. A. Lowell, The 1994 submarine

slope failure at Skagway, Alaska, in Landslides,edited by
K. Senneset, pp. 527-532, Balkema, Rotterdam, 1996.
Fine, I. V., A. B. Rabinovich, E. A. Kulikov, R. E. Thomson,

and B. D. Bornhold, Numerical modelling of landslidegenerated tsunamis with application to the SkagwayHarbor tsunami of November 3, 1994, Proc. Tsunarni Syrnp.,
Paris, 1998.
Jiang, L., and P. H. LeBlond, Three-dimensional modeling
of tsunami generation due to a submarine mudslide, J.

sharpcontrastbetweenthe harbor depth (m 10 m) and

Phys. Oceanogr.,24{(3),559-572, 1994.
the inlet depth ( 200 m) causesthe originaltsunami Kowalik, Z., Landslide-generatedtsunami in Skagway,Alasenergy to be trapped in the harbor.
Discussion

and

Conclusions

ka, Sci. TsunarniHazards,15(2), 89-106, 1997.

Kulikov, E. A., A. B. Rabinovich, R. E. Thomson, and B.
D. Bornhold, The landslide tsunami of November 3, 1994,

SkagwayHarbor, Alaska,. J. Geophys.Res., 101(C3),

Geomorphologicdata, analysisof the tide gaugerec6609-6615, 1996.
ord, and numerical simulation of the PARN Dock col- Kulikov,E. A., A. B. Rabinovich,I. V. Fine, B. D. Bornhold,
lapseand subsequentwavepropagationreveal that the
and R. E. Thomson,Tsunami generationby landslidesat
the Pacific coast of North America and the role of tides,
tsunami of November 3, 1994 in Skagway Harbor was
Oceanology,
38(3), 323-328, 1998.
generatedby the collapseof the dock at a time of extreme low water. Kulikovet al. [1998]providea physi- Lander J. F., Tsunamis Affecting Alaska, 1737-1996, 195
pp., Natl. Geophys.Data Center, Natl. Oceanicand Atcal mechanismrelating extremelow tide and landslides,
mos. Admin., Boulder, Colo., 1996.
and show that this mechanismis applicableonly for subaerial slides. The strong correlation between extreme Mader C. L., Modeling the 1994 Skagway tsunami, Sci.
TsunarniHazards,15(1), 41-48, 1997.
low tide and subaerial landslides is an additional argument that the 1994 tsunami was induced by the dock Nottingham,D. P. E., The 1994 Skagwaytsunamitide gage
record,Sci. TsunarniHazards,15(2), 81-88, 1997.
failure and not by an external submarine slide.
Raichlen,
F., J. J. Lee, C. Petroff, and P. Watts, The generThe results of our numerical computations for the
ation of wavesby a landslide: Skagway,Alaska - A case
combinedfine- and coarse-gridmodelsare in good agreestudy, Proc. 25th CoastalEng. Conf., ASCE, Orlando,
ment with observational data. The computed period of
Florida, 1996.

the fundamental mode of 3.0 min for SkagwayHarbor is

nearly identical to the observedperiod. Estimated and
observedQ-factor valuessuggesta significanttsunami
B. D. Bornhold, I. V. Fine, E. A. Kulikov and A. B.
energyretentionin the harbor due to the large contrast
in depth betweenthe harbor and inlet. Both our numer- Rabinovich, International Tsunami Research, Inc., 11321
ical model and the tide gaugerecord show that a wave Chalet Road, Sidney, BC, VSL 5M1, Canada. (e-mail:
crest arrived first at the tide gauge, contrary to the itri@ii.ca)

modelsproposedby Mader [1997]and Kowalik[1997]

R. E. Thomson, Fisheriesand OceansCanada, Institute

which require that a wave trough arrive first. To ex- of Ocean Sciences,9860 West Saanich Road, Sidney, BC,
plain this contradiction,Nottingham[1997]arguesthat VSL 4B2, Canada.
a suddenatmosphericpressuredrop of 67 mb occurred
seconds before the arrival of the tsunami event. Not
(ReceivedApril 9, 1999;acceptedJune24, 1999.)