Tracking past earthquakes along the Japan Trench

Mar 11, 2021

IODP Expedition 386 focuses on the record of giant earthquakes of the past preserved in deep marine sediments

Research vessel Kaimei. Credits © JAMSTEC

Japan is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region of special interest in earthquake research. The range of possible earthquake magnitudes and specifically the processes driving giant earthquakes – i.e. earthquakes with a moment magnitude (M_w) of nine or more – and how often they occur, however, is not fully understood. To gain an improved perspective of earthquake maximum magnitude and recurrence, researchers need to look back into the geological record. This is the aim of the upcoming International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 386 “Japan Trench Paleoseismology”, involving a team of scientists who will leave the port of Yokusuka onboard the research vessel Kaimei on 13^th April 2021.

The expedition is led by Dr. Ken Ikehara, from the Geological Survey (AIST) in Japan, and Prof. Michael Strasser at the Institute of Geology, University of Innsbruck (Austria). Michael Strasser is an associate member at MARUM and works closely with researchers in Bremen.

Read more about it in the press release.

More Information

About the expedition - https://www.ecord.org/expedition386/
About the research program - www.iodp.org
About the European part of the program - www.ecord.org
About the Japanese part of the program - http://www.j-desc.org/

Expedition Blog

https://expedition386.wordpress.com

The European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) and Institute for Marine-Earth Exploration and Engineering (MarE3) / Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) will jointly conduct an expedition of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).