| Session Details | |
| Section | SE - Solid Earth Sciences |
| Session Title | Scientific Drilling: Key to Understanding Tectonic Processes |
| Main Convener | Dr. Sukanta Roy (CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, India) |
| Co-convener(s) | Prof. Harsh Gupta (National Disaster Management Authority, India) Prof. Kuo-Fong Ma (National Central University, Taiwan) Prof. Jim Mori (Kyoto University, Japan) |
| Session Description | The success of scientific drilling lies in its ability to directly access deeper parts of the crust and provide critical data for understanding a wide spectrum of Earth processes. In recent years, international programs consisting of scientific deep drilling to investigate the fault zones in major seismically active regions worldwide have paved the way for addressing challenging research problems related to characterization of active faults at depth and the genesis of large earthquakes. These include, (i) San Andreas fault in California, (ii) Nojima fault associated with the 1995 Kobe earthquake, and (iii) Chelungpu fault associated with the Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan, and others. Major ongoing programs include drilling in the ocean floor to capture signatures of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in the Japan Trench, at the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake site in China and in the Alpine Fault. Earlier, the Kola super-deep borehole (12.26 km) in Russia and the KTB super-deep borehole (9.1 km) in Germany have revealed new and often surprising results about the structure and composition of the Earth’s interior. More recently, scientific drilling to >5 km has been carried out in the Sulu ultrahigh pressure metamorphic terrane, China that brought forth new information on evolution of the continental crust. Beyond the realm of crustal evolution and dynamics of the Earth’s crust and lithosphere, scientific drilling has played a key role in past climate change and has potential for non-conventional energy resources such as geothermal and gas hydrates. This session will focus on reviews of recent successes in scientific drilling studies both on land and in the seafloor, results of current projects, discussions of future proposals, and advances in scientific drilling technologies and deep borehole investigations. Papers from the full spectrum of solid earth and ocean sciences with challenging themes of socio-economic relevance including, but not limited to, active faults and earthquakes, volcanism, non-conventional energy resources and past climate change will be welcome. |