The 28 February 1969 earthquake and tsunami in the North East Atlantic – A Review

The M~8.0 28th February 1969 was the largest earthquake recorded in the North East (NE) Atlantic basin. The event occurred in the South West Iberian Margin, one of the areas prone to generate transoceanic tsunamis in the Atlantic Ocean. The tsunami that followed the earthquake was recorded in more than 20 tide-gauge stations along the coasts of Portugal, Spain, Morocco and UK.In this study, carried out by IDL researchers Maria Ana Baptista, J. Miguel Miranda, and Rachid Omira present a comprehensive review of the 1969 tsunami source using unprecedented collection of tide-gauge data and improved bathymetric datasets close to the tide stations. We relocate the tsunami source and solve the differences found in the location of the earthquake and tsunami sources. Finally, we address the hypothesis of the contribution of a submarine landslide off the NE coast of Morocco to the tsunami observed in the coast of Morocco.These results contribute to understand the seismic and tsunamigenic potential of the Nubia-Eurasia plate boundary close to the Strait of Gibraltar. This work received support of projects FCT - UID/GEO/50019/2013 – IDL and MagicLand and was presented at AGU Fall Meeting 2019.https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm19/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/509604