Deep-ocean researchers target tsunami zone near Japan
January 17, 2008Rice University Earth scientist Dale Sawyer and colleagues last month reported the discovery of a strong variation in the tectonic stresses in a region of the Pacific Ocean notorious for generating devastating earthquakes and tsunamis in southeastern Japan.
The results came from an eight-week expedition by Sawyer and 15 scientists from six countries at the Nankai Trough, about 100 miles from Kobe, Japan. Using the new scientific drilling vessel "Chikyu," the team drilled deep into a zone responsible for undersea earthquakes that have caused tsunamis and will likely cause more. They collected physical measurements and images using new rugged instruments designed to capture scientific data from deep within a well while it is being drilled.
The Nankai Trough is known as a subduction zone, because it marks the place where one tectonic plate slides beneath another. Tectonic plates are pieces of the Earth's crust, and earthquakes often occur in regions like subduction zones where plates grate and rub against one another. For reasons scientists don't yet understand, plates that should move smoothly relative to each other sometimes become locked. In spite of this, the plates continue moving and stress builds at the points where the plates are locked. The stored energy at these sites is eventually released as large earthquakes, which occur when the locked area breaks and the the plates move past one another very rapidly, creating a devastating tsunami like the one in Sumatra and the Indian Ocean three years ago.
"Earthquakes don't nucleate just anywhere," Sawyer said. "While the slip zone for quakes in this region may be hundreds of kilometers long and tens of kilometers deep, the initiation point of the big quakes is often just about five to six kilometers below the seafloor. We want to know why.”
Sawyer said scientists with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) plan to return to the Nankai Trough aboard the Chikyu each year through 2012, with the ultimate goal of drilling a six-kilometer-deep well to explore the region where the quakes originate. If they succeed, the well will be more than three times deeper than previous wells drilled by scientific drill ships, and it will provide the first direct evidence from this geological region where tsunami-causing quakes originate.
The drilling done by Sawyer and colleagues marked the beginning of this massive project, which IODP has dubbed the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment, or NanTroSEIZE. In addition to the objective of drilling across the plate boundary fault, NanTroSEIZE scientists also hope to sample the rocks and fluids inside the fault, and they want to place instruments inside the fault zone to monitor activity and conditions leading up to the next great earthquake.
"The Chikyu is a brand new ship -- the largest science vessel ever constructed -- and it uses state-of-the-art drilling technology," Sawyer said.
The Chikyu is the first scientific drill ship to incorporate riser drilling technology. Pioneered by the oil industry, a riser system includes an outer casing that surrounds the drill pipe to provide return-circulation of drilling fluid to maintain balanced pressure within the borehole. The technology is necessary for drilling several thousand meters into the Earth.
Source: Rice University
-
Earthquakes to the core -- Researchers drill down at the epicenter
Aug 30, 2011 |
not rated yet |
1
-
Undersea clues to Haiti's earthquake history
Jul 22, 2011 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Heavy metal meets hard rock: Battling through the ocean crust's hardest rocks
Jun 30, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
1
-
Scientists study earthquake triggers in Pacific ocean
Jun 29, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
0
-
Scientists drill beneath Dead Sea in search of priceless data
Dec 21, 2010 |
4.3 / 5 (8) |
4
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Do some geologists actually act a lot like Randy Marsh?
20 hours ago
-
Discrepancy between oxygen and carbon-dioxide levels
Feb 09, 2012
-
where gems are found in the world
Feb 09, 2012
-
Wind Waves in Reservoir ~ Wind run-up and Wind set-up
Feb 08, 2012
-
Balance of oxygen in the atmosphere
Feb 01, 2012
-
The case for a methanol-based economy
Jan 30, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - Earth
More news stories
Europe stakes billion-dollar bet on new rocket
A pencil-slim rocket is scheduled to lift into space from South America on Monday, carrying a billion-dollar bet that Europe can grab a juicy slice of the market to place satellites in low orbit.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
19 hours ago |
3.5 / 5 (2) |
0
Political leaders play key role in how worried Americans are by climate change: study
More than extreme weather events and the work of scientists, it is national political leaders who influence how much Americans worry about the threat of climate change, new research finds.
Feb 06, 2012 |
5 / 5 (6) |
72
NASA budget will axe Mars deal with Europe: scientists
US President Barack Obama's budget proposal to be submitted next week for 2013 will cut NASA's budget by 20 percent and eliminate a major partnership with Europe on Mars exploration, scientists said Thursday.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Feb 10, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
48
Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...
High planetary tilt lowers odds for life?
Highly-tilted worlds would have extreme seasons, subjecting life to alternating periods of scorching and subzero temperatures. This could make the development of all but hardiest, simplest creatures a long ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Feb 06, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (12) |
14
|
Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...
GPS court ruling leaves US phone tracking unclear
A US Supreme Court decision requiring a warrant to place a GPS device on the car of a criminal suspect leaves unresolved the bigger issue of police tracking using mobile phones, legal experts say.
Europeans protest controversial Internet pact
Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.
Study finds that anti-diabetic medication can prevent the long-term effects of maternal obesity
In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in Dallas, Texas, researchers will report findings that show that short therapy with the anti-diabetic medication ...
Netflix settlement trims 14 pct off 4Q earnings
(AP) -- Netflix pressed the rewind button on its fourth-quarter earnings after settling allegations that the video subscription service violated a consumer-privacy law.
Navy to begin tests on electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher
The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility ...