Expedition
- Science plan
- IODP Exp.405 JTRACK will drill into the Japan Trench subduction zone with the goal of finding out what controls shallow slip during great earthquakes. Exp. 405 will visit two sites; one in a transect across the trench from undisturbed sedimentary rocks on the incoming Pacific Plate (JTCT-02A); the second, in a site that will access the fault zone in the region of large, shallow slip observed during the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake (JTCT-01A).
- Operation Overview
- At each site, a Logging-While-Drilling (LWD) hole will be drilled first, followed by drilling with coring tools to recover core samples, hopefully all the way from the seafloor down to the basalt of the subducting plate boundary. Finally, a sub-seafloor observatory will be installed at Site JTCT-01A. This borehole observatory will measure high-resolution temperature over time at multiple depths within the fault zone. This observatory will build upon the success of IODP Exp.343 JFAST temperature observatory installed at Site C0019.
