An ambitious international project to dig deeper into the Earth’s surface than ever before has made a good start with scientists saying they have gained clues about how large earthquakes and tsunami occur.
The experiment, using the Japanese government’s 57,500-tonne, 60-billion-yen ($550-million) deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu, is probing a trench in waters off the Pacific coast of Japan where two tectonic plates meet.
A team of 16 scientists from six countries have been seeking clues about how seismic activity can shake the planet’s foundations