The drill site is located very close to the epicenter of the magnitude-9.1
Tohoku-oki earthquake, which battered the region in 2011 and produced a gargantuan tsunami that smashed into the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, triggering a devastating meltdown. By studying sediment from this area, the researchers hope to learn more about the trench s ancient earthquake history.
This deep drilling operation blows the previous ocean drilling record holder out of the water. For nearly 50 years, that record has belonged to the research vessel Glomar Challenger, which sunk a drill into the
Mariana Trench in 1978. That operation recovered a sediment core from about 4.3 miles (7,000 m) below the surface or about 1,000 m closer to fresh air than the recent RV Kaimei expedition, the team said.