Team to Drill Below Ocean Earthquake Zone

Japanese scientists will lead a multi-year international project to place seismographic instruments below the ocean’s floor, where earthquakes occur.

The project’s first step began this month with a shakedown cruise of Japan’s state-of-the-art deep-sea drilling ship named Chikyu.

The project is a multidisciplinary study of tectonic plates located in southwest Japan, a region that experiences severe earthquakes and earthquake-generated tsunamis.

The project’s proponents say Chikyu is the first scientific ocean drilling ship capable of drilling as far as 23,000 feet below the ocean floor.

University of Missouri-Columbia geologist Michael Underwood, one of a handful of U.S. scientists participating in the shakedown cruise, said scientists plan to drill directly into the plate boundary zone where earthquakes are generated and install instrumentation to measure activity over time. Previously, this was not possible because the seismogenic zone was too deep for other drilling ships to reach.

Based on the expenditures and goals of this project, it’s comparable to sending a spaceship to the moon, Underwood said.

The shakedown cruise, which began Aug. 6, is expected to conclude in mid-October.