All aboard the deepsea driller
Meet the Japanese research vessel crossing the ocean in search of earthquake-makers
Words by Scott Dutfield
The deep-sea-drilling vessel Chikyu of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, anchored in Shimizu, Japan
© Getty
Seismologists aboard Chikyu study cores from below the seafloor to learn the origins of earthquakes
© Getty
DID YOU KNOW?
The deepest human-made hole on Earth goes down 12,262 metres: the Kola Superdeep Borehole
Chikyu, meaning ‘the Earth’ in Japanese, is one of the world’s deepestdrilling vessels. Construction on the ship was completed back in 2005, and it took four years to build. This behemoth boat stretches 210 metres long, equivalent to about eight bullet-train cars. It was built to operate in water depths of around 2,500 metres and is capable of drilling down around 7,500 metres below the seafloor. However, the speed at which it can burrow depends on how soft the muddy seabed is. If the material is soft enough the drill can dig down 300 metres in a single day, but when it reaches the dense earth below the seabed the rate of penetration can decrease to as slow as 50 metres in a day.