Emily Lane

• Programme Leader: Resilience to Hazards at National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

The 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) volcanic eruption caused a global tsunami due to the atmo­spheric pressure disturbance. While the far field tsunami has been widely investigated, the nearfield effect of the tsunami processes due to different forcings has not been fully studied. In this paper, we investigated the tsunamis in the near field...

Subduction zones have the greatest potential to generate large earthquakes and tsunamis. However, when undertaking Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessments (PTHAs), subduction zones are a significant source of epistemic uncertainty. Therefore, understanding how the spatial distribution of elastic strain accumulation on the subduction interface infl...

River bathymetry is important for accurate flood modelling but often unavailable due to the time-intensive and expensive nature of its acquisition. This leads to several proposed and implemented approaches for its estimation. However, the errors in measurements and estimations inherent in these methods, affecting the accuracy of the flood modelling...

The tsunamigenic potential of underwater volcanic eruptions is not well understood, even though eruption-generated tsunamis can be devastating. To address how erupted steam bursts from underwater volcanoes generate tsunamis, we present the experiments, using pressurized steam injected vertically into a water tank. Results over various eruption cond...

This study evaluates the effects of downscaling, source terms, and tidal interactions on numerical wave forecasts in Aotearoa New Zealand. We utilised a set of three nested domains (from global to regional scale) to examine significant wave height (Hs), mean period (Tm01), and peak wave direction at two coastal locations, Banks Peninsula and Baring...

Tsunamis generated by volcanic eruptions have risen to prominence since the December 2018 tsunami generated by the flank collapse of Anak Krakatau during a moderate eruption and then the global tsunami generated by the explosive eruption of the Hunga volcano in the Tongan Archipelago in January 2022. Both events cause fatalities and highlight the l...

Submarine landslides can generate destructive tsunamis. Yet their recurrence intervals and tsunamigenic mechanisms are poorly understood, hampering quantification of global exposure and risk. With growing coastal populations and climatic changes, the impacts of tsunami hazards will increase, and will disproportionately affect peoples in underdevelo...

The impacts of large terrestrial volcanic eruptions are apparent from satellite monitoring and direct observations. However, more than three quarters of all volcanic outputs worldwide lie submerged beneath the ocean, and the risks they pose to people, infrastructure, and benthic ecosystems remain poorly understood due to inaccessibility and a lack...

Plain Language Summary Tsunamis with devastating, wide‐reaching consequences are significant hazards to nearly all of the world's coastlines that needs to be analyzed and quantified. Previous tsunami hazard studies have relied on sparse data retrieved from geological and/or probabilistic earthquake models to examine this infrequent but potentially...

Volcanic eruptions on land create hot and fast pyroclastic density currents, triggering tsunamis or surges that travel over water where they reach the ocean. However, no field study has documented what happens when large volumes of erupted volcanic material are instead delivered directly into the ocean. We show how the rapid emplacement of large vo...

Tsunamis can be generated by an impulsive displacement of water resulting from the entrance of pyroclastic density currents (PDCs). The maximum wave amplitude is of primary interest regarding tsunami modeling and applications to hazard assessment. This study explores tsunami generation by fluidized granular flows and analyzes published relationship...

Flooding is Aotearoa-New Zealand's most frequent natural hazard, and there is high confidence that climate change is making extreme rainfall events more frequent and intense. Additionally, there are significant development pressures which could both increase the number of people and assets at risk and the flood hazard. To date, there is no publicly...

Volcanogenic tsunami and wave hazard remains less understood than that of other tsunami sources. Volcanoes can generate waves in a multitude of ways, including subaqueous explosions. Recent events, including a highly explosive eruption at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai and subsequent tsunami in January 2022, have reinforced the necessity to explore and...

Unlabelled: On January 15th, 2022, at approximately 4:47 pm local time (0347 UTC), several weeks of heightened activity at the Hunga volcano 65 km northwest of Tongatapu, culminated in an 11-h long violent eruption which generated a significant near-field tsunami. Although the Kingdom of Tonga lies astride a large and tsunamigenic subduction zone,...

The impacts of large terrestrial volcanic eruptions are apparent from satellite monitoring and direct observations 1,2 . However, more than three quarters of all volcanoes worldwide lie submerged beneath the ocean and the risks they pose to people and infrastructure remain poorly understood due to inaccessibility and a lack of detailed observations...

Volcanogenic tsunami and wave hazard remains less understood than that of other tsunami sources. Volcanoes can generate waves in a multitude of ways, including subaqueous explosions. Recent events, including a highly explosive eruption at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai and subsequent tsunami in January 2022, have reinforced the necessity to explore and...

Volcanic tsunamis can expand the radius of hazards posed by a volcano well beyond the reach of the eruption itself; however, their source mechanisms are poorly understood. The tsunamigenic potential of pyroclastic density currents was studied experimentally by releasing a fluidized column of glass beads from a reservoir; the beads then ran down an...

The global tsunami and atmospheric waves that followed the eruption of the Tongan volcano Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai were observed around the world. Analysing the data could reshape our understanding of such events. Volcanic eruption caused a meteotsunami.

Informed by Māori oral histories that refer to past catastrophic marine inundations, multi-proxy analysis of stratigraphic records from Swamp Bay, Rangitoto ki te Tonga (D’Urville Island) shows evidence of an anomalous deposit extending some 160 m inland. The deposit includes two distinct lithofacies. The lower sand unit is inferred to have been tr...

Theoretical source models of underwater explosions are often applied in studying tsunami hazards associated with subaqueous volcanism; however, their use in numerical codes based on the shallow water equations can neglect the significant dispersion of the generated wavefield. A non-hydrostatic multilayer method is validated against a laboratory-sca...

Coastal infrastructure are critical to the effective operation of society, but are highly susceptible to tsunami impacts. There are limited studies in the tsunami risk assessment discipline on network scale impacts of a tsunami to critical infrastructure. This study proposes and tests a framework (consisting of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and i...

Most tsunamis are triggered by seismic events, involving an underwater earthquake with a sharp vertical displacement of the seafloor. Generally, seabed deformations are not unipolar, but instead bipolar or even more complex. To model tsunamis generated by segmented seafloor deformations, an analytical model and a numerical model including source ki...

Although infrequent, volcanic tsunamis have accounted for almost 20% of those killed by volcanic eruptions since 1000 A.D (Mastin and Witter in J Volcanol Geotherm Res 97(1–4):195–214. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-0273(99)00174-2, 2000; Latter in Bull Volcanol 44(3):467–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02600578, 1981). The destructive potential and...

Tsunamis initiated by volcanoes have the ability to greatly expand the hazard footprint of an eruption far beyond the proximity of the eruption itself. Volcanogenic tsunamis are a lesser modelled hazard compared to their seismogenic relatives, and the understanding of wave-making potential from subaqueous explosive eruptions is poor due to practica...

The tsunami generation potential of pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) entering the sea is poorly understood, due to limited data and observations. Thus far, tsunami generation by PDCs has been modeled in a similar manner to tsunami generation associated with landslides or debris flows, using two‐layer depth‐averaged approaches. Using the adaptive...

Plain Language Summary When volcanoes erupt underwater, they can generate waves that are dangerous even at coastlines far away from the eruption itself. In this study, we investigated whether the wave heights changed when the underwater eruption lasted a different amount of time. Our experiments modeled an underwater eruption by releasing compresse...

Theoretical source models of underwater explosions are often applied in studying tsunami hazards associated with submarine volcanism; however, their use in numerical codes based on the shallow water equations can neglect the significant dispersion of the generated wavefield. A non-hydrostatic multilayer method is validated against a laboratory-scal...

The complexity of the Kaikōura earthquake rupture and tsunami generation presented a unique opportunity to examine and learn from a modern event. This paper reviews how the five years of research following the Kaikōura tsunami have improved our understanding of the event and our knowledge of tsunami science across a range of disciplines. Teams of r...

Submarine volcanic eruptions have the potential to generate tsunamis, which can cause destruction well beyond the range of the eruption itself. Here, we present a series of underwater eruption experiments in which a non‐condensing gas was injected into a water tank with a range of water depths and applied pressures. This study proposes an effective...

A submarine volcanic eruption has the potential to generate a dangerous local tsunami. To better understand the free surface disturbance generated by an underwater volcanic eruption, which will form the initial condition for any subsequent wave generation, we conducted a series of laboratory experiments. In these experiments, compressed air was inj...

Caldera lakes are prominent volcanic features that can pose an additional hazard due to water presence, such as tsunamis, lahars, or flooding by lake breakout. Many of these lakes are populated and occupied by infrastructure on their shore, such as hydroelectric facilities. Volcanogenic tsunamis are a lesser modelled hazard compared to their seismo...

The subduction zone along the northern Tonga Trench has the highest plate convergence rate in the world, but limited records of its seismic and tsunamigenic activities. In 2009, a tsunami generated by an MW 8.1 earthquake doublet caused severe impacts in the region including damage and loss of life on the south shores of Upolu and Savaii Islands, S...

Tsunami events over the last century have highlighted the potential for impacts on the built environment. Recent international tsunami events have provided an opportunity for the collection of post-event survey data for tsunami impacted critical infrastructure systems and networks. International research in the tsunami impacts domain has largely fo...

The November 14, 2016 Kaikōura earthquake in Aotearoa-New Zealand involved the rupture of 21 faults across North Canterbury, Marlborough, some of which extended offshore. The earthquake triggered a cascade of hazards including a localised 7 m tsunami. The Aotearoa-New Zealand tsunami research community sprang into action, providing advice around im...

Extensive evidence for submarine landslide failure is found along the east Australian continental margin. This paper assesses the sedimentological properties and models the failure event that created the Byron landslide scar, located on the southeast Australian continental margin, ~34 km off the coast of Byron Bay, New South Wales. Sedimentological...

Transportation infrastructure is crucial to the operation of society, particularly during post-event response and recovery. Transportation assets, such as roads and bridges, can be exposed to tsunami impacts when near the coast. Using fragility functions in an impact assessment identifies potential tsunami effects to inform decisions on potential m...

Understanding the potential impacts of a large tsunami on a coastal region enables better planning of disaster management strategies. Potential housing damage, habitability, human displacement and sheltering needs are key concerns for emergency managers following tsunami events. This article presents a novel approach to address these requirements....

Transportation infrastructure is crucial to the operation of society, particularly during post-event response and recovery. Transportation assets, such as roads and bridges, can be exposed to tsunami impacts when near the coast. Using fragility functions in an impact assessment identifies potential tsunami effects to inform decisions on potential m...

Tsunamis can have severe impacts on society. In addition to casualties and damage to buildings, they can also damage and disrupt critical infrastructure. To support effective risk management, it is important to understand the possible extent, severity and duration of these impacts. While impacts on buildings and casualty estimations are relatively...

Coastal settlements worldwide have suffered significant damage and loss to tsunami hazards in the last few decades. This period coincides with socio-economic changes that have heightened spatio-temporal risk through increased coastal development and infrastructure. In this study, we apply a spatio-temporal loss model to quantify the changes in dire...

The 14 November 2016 Kaikōura Tsunami inundated Little Pigeon Bay in Banks Peninsula, New Zealand, and left a distinct sedimentary deposit, on the ground and within the cottage near the shore. Sedimentary (grain size) and geochemical (electrical conductivity and X-Ray Fluorescence) analyses on samples collected over successive field campaigns are u...

The 2016 Mw 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake was one of the largest earthquakes in New Zealand’s historical record, and it generated the most significant local source tsunami to affect New Zealand since 1947. There are many unusual features of this earthquake from a tsunami perspective: the epicentre was well inland of the coast, multiple faults were involv...

At 12:02:56 a.m. Monday, November 14 2016 NZDT (11:02:56 a.m., November 13 2016 UTC) a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck near Kaikōura on the north-eastern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. This earthquake caused a tsunami along New Zealand’s east coast that was recorded on a number of sea level gauges. Outside of the Kaikōura region, north f...

Tsunami generated by submarine landslides are now recognised as an important hazard, following several historical events. Submarine landslides can occur in a variety of settings such as on continental slopes, volcanic slopes, and submerged canyons and fjords. While significant progress has been made in understanding tsunami generation processes on...

Cook Strait Canyon is a submarine canyon that lies within ten kilometres of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. The canyon walls are covered with scars from previous landslides which could have caused local tsunamis. Palaeotsunami evidence also points to past tsunamis in the Wellington region. Furthermore, the canyon’s location in Cook Str...

Cook Strait Canyon is a submarine canyon that lies within ten kilometres of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. The canyon walls are covered with scars from previous landslides which could have caused local tsunamis. Palaeotsunami evidence also points to past tsunamis in the Wellington region. Furthermore, the canyon’s location in Cook Str...

The Cook Strait Canyon is a submarine canyon which lies within 10 km of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. The canyon flanks are scarred with the evidence of past landslides that may have caused large local tsunamis. City planning and civil defence management require information on the magnitude and frequency of these tsunamis to adequate...

Tsunami risk reduction activities rely on a sound knowledge of the hazard characteristics. Our understanding of these characteristics is derived from empirical measurements, numerical models or established rules. Conventional methods used to delineate areas vulnerable to tsunami inundation are often calculated from estimated maximum wave height at...

The Cook Strait Canyon of central New Zealand was identified as a priority area to quantify landslide-generated tsunami hazard in a national study in 2005. Therefore the canyon system has seen increasing research interest over the last decade. Landslide scars have been mapped throughout the whole of the Cook Strait Canyon area and analysis of lands...

Evidence of previous submarine mass failures in the form of excavation scars has been widely documented in the Cook Strait Canyons of New Zealand. Recent bathymetry surveying has identified a well-defined submarine landslide scar and its associated debris deposit on the northern slope of southern Hikurangi Trough. The newly acquired multi-beam data...

This sixth edition of the Submarine Mass Movements and Their Consequences volume, coincident with the seventh eponymous conference includes 61 papers that span a variety of topics and are organized into nine parts as follows: (1) Submarine mass movement in margin construction and economic significance; (2) Failure dynamics from landslide geomorphol...

This sixth edition of the Submarine Mass Movements and Their Consequences volume, coincident with the seventh eponymous conference includes 61 papers that span a variety of topics and are organized into nine parts as follows: (1) Submarine mass movement in margin construction and economic significance; (2) Failure dynamics from landslide geomorphol...

Submarine landslide complexes and mass-transport deposits (MTD's) occur widely across active margins affected by many forcing factors including earthquakes; sediment loading; gas hydrates; tectonic deformation and slope undercutting. The Hikurangi Margin is no exception, reflecting the tectonically dynamic nature of the margin and a voluminous terr...

Regional source tsunamis represent a potentially devastating threat to coastal communities in New Zealand, yet are infrequent events for which little historical information is available. It is therefore essential to develop robust methods for quantitatively estimating the hazards posed, so that effective mitigation measures can be implemented. We d...

Regional source tsunamis pose a potentially devas-tating hazard to communities and infrastructure on the New Zealand coast. But major events are very uncommon. This dichotomy of infrequent but potentially devastating hazards makes realistic assessment of the risk challenging. Here, we describe a method to determine a probabilistic assessment of the...

Tsunami are a significant coastal hazard for new Zealand. Evacuation plans and land use planning are important measures for mitigating this hazard, but for these to succeed it is critical to be able to evaluate the scale of the threat posed. For this purpose methods are being developed for performing Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment (PTHA) t...

A new marine forecasting system for the New Zealand region has been developed, including global and regional wave models, and regional tide and storm surge models. These form part of an integrated weather-related hazards forecasting capability, which also includes an accurate, data-assimilating high-resolution weather forecasting system and a natio...

The New Zealand coastline faces the risk of tsunami from a variety of sources including remote and local earthquakes, submarine landslides and volcanoes. Over 60% of the New Zealand population lives within 5 km of the coast. Significant infrastructure, such as ports, roads, bridges, airports, also lies close to the coast. Palaeotsunami studies have...

1] We use the vortex force formalism to analyze the effect of rip currents on their own wave forcing. The vortex force formalism allows us to decompose the wave forcing into the nonconservative flux of momentum due to wave breaking and the conservative vortex force. Following Yu and Slinn (2003), we consider rip currents initially generated by alon...

Greater Cook Strait (GCS) lies between the North and the South Islands of New Zealand. Its location at the convergence of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates leads to interesting bathymetry with an adjacent shallow shelf and deep ocean trench as well as numerous crossing faults and complex shoreline geometry. Our purpose in this study i...

The attempt to simultaneously optimize stability, accuracy, and efficiency in an ocean model leads to a wide range of methods that are potentially useful. For some models, a major issue is the efficient integration of the Coriolis term when the underlying numerical model uses a semi-implicit time integration. Existing numerical models treat this in...

We describe an example of a structurally stable heteroclinic network for which nearby orbits exhibit irregular but sustained switching between the various sub-cycles in the network. The mechanism for switching is the presence of spiralling due to complex eigenvalues in the flow linearised about one of the equilibria common to all cycles in the netw...

RiCOM is an unstructured-grid finite-element coastal ocean model. It is used to provide storm surge forecasts as part of a larger suite of environmental forecasting models known collectively as EcoConnect. RiCOM is forced with surface pressure and with 10 m winds forecast by the weather prediction model, NZLAM-12. Our objective is to evaluate the R...

An examination of the coastal geomorphology of bays along the Otago coastline, SE New Zealand, has identified a geomorphology consistent with tsunami inundation. A tsunami geomorphology consisting of a number of elements including dune pedestals, hummocky topography, parabolic dune systems, and post-tsunami features resulting from changes to the ne...

Unstructured grid models are often used for modelling coastal problems, due to their efficiency at handling complex coastlines while also not over resolving deeper water. In this paper, we outline how an unstructured grid finite element model has been incorporated into an operational environmental forecast system, EcoConnect, to provide near real-t...

Coastal ocean hydrodynamic models are subject to a number of stability constraints. The most important of these are the Courant–Friedrichs–Levy (CFL) constraint on gravity waves, a Courant (Cr) number constraint on advection, and a time step constraint on the vertical component of viscous stresses. The model described here removes these constraints...

Up-current-rotated, shoreface-connected ridges are found in various coastal areas around the world. An often-quoted conjecture is that these ridges form during storm conditions through free instabilities in the erodible bed. Under these conditions both waves and currents are expected to play a significant role in the hydrodynamics. Although some ex...

Most of the hypotheses put forward to explain glacial–interglacial cycles in atmospheric pCO2 are centred on Southern-Ocean-based mechanisms. This is in large part because: (1) timing constraints rule out changes in the North Atlantic as the trigger; (2) the concept of “high-latitude sensitivity” eliminates changes in the non-polar oceans as likely...

A multi-scale asymptotic theory is derived for the evolution and interaction of currents and surface gravity waves in water of finite depth, under conditions typical of coastal shelf waters outside the surf zone. The theory provides a practical and useful model with which wave–current coupling may be explored without the necessity of resolving feat...

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Thesis (MSc--Applied Mathematics)--University of Auckland, 1998.