Drilling Ship to Probe Fault Zone that Caused Fukushima Quake
Monday, October 31, 2011 - 13:31
in Earth & Climate
After being tossed about and damaged by the tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan on March 11, Japan's drilling ship the Chikyu has been given an especially fitting assignment: to drill into the fault zone and take temperature measurements near the epicentre of the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake that caused the tsunami. It will be the first time that researchers have drilled into an underwater fault soon after a quake. The aim of the exercise is to solve a decades-old mystery about the part that friction plays in such an event. This should help scientists to understand why some faults are more likely than others to cause tsunamis -- in this case, one that ultimately claimed more than 23,000 lives. [More]