Scientists Obtain Rocks Moving into Seismogenic Zone

An international group of scientists aboard the Deep-Sea Drilling Vessel CHIKYU, operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), return from a 40-day scientific expedition off the shore of the Kii Peninsula, Japan on Oct. 10, 2009. Expedition 322, called “Subduction Inputs” in the multi-stage project, conducted drilling, logging and sampling beneath the ocean floor to investigate input material that will be transported to the seismogenic zone by the plate subduction system.

The drilling operations were carried …