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2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, Integrated Ocean Drilling Program

Deep-Ocean Researchers Target Tsunami Zone near Japan



We will all remember the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that originated in the Indian Ocean, just off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Tsunamis such as these originate from undersea earthquakes, which essentially push tons of water skyward, and thus creating the tsunami waves.

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A recent report conducted by Rice University Earth scientist Dale Sawyer and colleagues last month has reported the discovery of strong variation in tectonic stresses. The team, which spent eight weeks at sea aboard the new scientific drilling vessel Chikyu, began drilling in to the seabed in a region of the Pacific Ocean, notorious for the creation of devastating earthquakes and tsunamis that have rocked southeastern Japan. The Nankai Trough, 100 miles from Kobe, Japan, is a subduction zone – the place where one tectonic plate is sliding beneath another. Tectonic plates – pieces of the Earth’s crust – are continually moving (thus the continental drift). Occasionally these plates make contact with each other, and slide beneath or above one another. However, scientists are focusing their attention on the plates that do not slide smoothly together, and become locked. The plates will naturally keep moving, creating tremendous amounts of stress at the point where the plates are locked. Eventually, there will be cracking which cause the earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis. This is what happened to cause the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. "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 and his team drilled deep in to the Nankai Trough, and collected physical measurements and images. The collected information was caught by new rugged instruments designed to capture the necessary scientific data from deep within a well while it is being drilled. Sawyer says that scientists with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) will return to Nankai Trough each year aboard the Chikyu through to 2012. Their ultimate goal is to drill a well six kilometers deep to really explore the region in question, and how quakes originate. If their plan succeeds, the well will be three times deeper than any previous well drilled by scientific drill ships. Subsequently, it will provide the first direct evidence a geological region where tsunami causing quakes originate. "The Chikyu is a brand new ship -- the largest science vessel ever constructed -- and it uses state-of-the-art drilling technology," Sawyer said. Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.


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Guest Column Joshua Hill -- Bio and Archives

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