About the Chikyu and Drilling!Q: Why are the ships or boats considered a "her"? Sreya Name of answerer: Xixi Zhao I think it is an old tradition that comes from Romance
languages—the word “ship” is always feminine. One source also suggests that “a
ship was nearer and dearer to the sailor than anyone except his mother."
So, what can be a better reason to call his ship “She?” Name of answerer: Arito Sakaguchi
This seems to differ by country, Ship names in are male. Some Japanese ships have “Maru” as a suffix (e.g., Nippon-Maru), which is a very old style for male names. For example, the famous samurai Yoshitsune was called Ushiwaka-Maru as a child. Q: Why is the ship called Chikyu and does it mean something in English?
Name of Answerer: Xin Su
The ship’s name "Chikyu" means "Earth" in English. Q: Does your drilling have a negative effect on the ocean environment and sea life? Name of answerer: Kazuhiro Hayashi Our operation pays a lot of attention to the environmental impact
during drilling operations. We carefully
decide where to drill using an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) to examine the
seafloor. Moreover, we use ocean
sediments to study how the oceans have behaved in the past and understand
Earth's environmental changes. Ocean
drilling science is very important for our future. I like the sea and the Earth and would like
to keep our blue planet safe, the same as you. Q: How big is the boat you are on? What is the biggest boat made for this?
Valley Girl Name of answerer: Matthew Knuth The Chikyu is one of the biggest drilling vessels at work around the world today. The ship is 210 meters long and 38 meters wide. The derrick stands at 112 meters above the waterline, which makes it the highest operating derrick in the world today. I believe the largest drillship in the world today is called the Stena Drill MAX. It is about 14 meters longer than the Chikyu and 4 meters wider. There are a few other ships planned that may end up being even larger, but they are really more like a cross between a normal drillship and an oil tanker. They are built large so that they can store a lot of oil once they have drilled a well. The Chikyu was designed primarily for research, so it has a lot more space for laboratories. Its massive size makes it extremely stable, even in some pretty rough seas. That is very important when we are trying to set up sensitive experiments. Q: Is there a captain of the ship? If so, who is he? What is his background?
Name: Bradley
Specialty: Paleomagnetism Country: China and USA
Yes, every vessel has a captain and the Chikyu is no exception. In fact, Chikyu has two captains. Why? Because Chikyu’s mission (Chikyu is Japanese for “Earth Discovery”) is to sample sediment layers deep under the world’s ocean floor, she stays at sea continuously for 5-7 months once she leaves port. Thus, Chikyu needs two captains who rotate every 4 weeks. They use a helicopter to get on the ship as boarding from a smaller boat could be dangerous.
The current Captain on duty is Mr. Yuji Onda. He
was born in Tokyo in 1957 and currently lives in
Yokohoma Japan with his wife and two children as well as a dog. He graduated from the The other Captain is Mr. Kazuo Ichiyama, also Japanese. Q: Why do you call the drill tower the "Derrick?” Name: K. Money This is a great question! It stumped us, so David Goldsby checked on “Wikipedia.” Below is what he found. Name of Answerer: Dr. David L. Goldsby, Brown University
Answer: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: Why is searching for ocean cores so important? Why are you doing it?
Name: Rock Lady Name of Answerer: Arito Sakaguchi
Answer: The submarine faults (zones where rocks are sliding past each other) that we are studying are very far from our homes on land. But these types of faults repeatedly cause large earthquakes. The earthquake energy released from plate subduction zones is over 85% of all earthquake energy in the shallow Earth's crust. Also, submarine faults cause “tsunamis;” tsunamis occur when the sudden movement along the fault lifts or drops part of the ocean floor, creating a large wave. These waves can cause serious disasters. Research on submarine faults is important for earthquake sciences and disaster prevention. The collection of cores from this submarine fault zone will give us clues so we can understand how earthquakes occur. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: Do you drill in the same exact place every time? Meryl Name of answerer: Katerina Petronotis
We actually have drilled in quite a few different places around
the world. For this expedition, we are drilling off the coast of Q: What special tools do you use? Answer: Of course, there are other instruments for the things that hand lenses can’t figure out. Right by the rock description table there are two very nice light microscopes. One allows you to look at small chunks of rock a bit more closely than a hand lens. The other is a microscope that shoots light through things. In order to get light through the rock we put a tiny piece of the rock in a drop of water on a glass slide so that it falls apart into its sand, silt, or clay particles. Next we use a special glue to stick on a glass cover slip. Now, the grains can be examined really close up----typically at magnifications of 200x to 400x. -------------------------------------------- Q: Why do you drill near Name of answerer: Arito Sakaguchi Large earthquakes happen in a few areas around the world, where one tectonic plate is subducting under another. Among them, the area around has a large amount of data from the past. A lot of old earthquakes have been documented in ’s historical documents for more than 1300 years. Modern seismologic observations have been made for more than 80 years. The structure of the oceanic crust has been surveyed in detail. Also the earthquake history, recurrence interval, and fault structures are well known around . For all these reasons, the ocean floor east of is an ideal location to drill
to understand the mechanisms of large earthquakes. Q: What do you do once you find the minerals and rocks? What happens to the cores once they are drilled? ------------------------------------ Q: How deep is the water? Name: France Elisabeth Girault The sea floor is a bit like what you see on land. Mountains, valleys, hills and even volcanoes are typical landscapes that we can see down on the sea floor. The area where we are drilling during this expedition is located on a large slope between the continent and the deep ocean. At our first drilling site, the water was about 2630 meters deep; at our second site, the water will be around 3900 meters deep. An additional note from Matt Knuth (Specialty: Geophysicist; Role: Physical Properties; Nationality: U.S.)
The
location where we are drilling today is about 3.8 kilometers below the
surface of the ocean, or about two and a half miles. For scale, that is
about ten Empire State Buildings stacked one on top of the other. And
the hole itself will be about 800 meters deep. This means that the
length of hollow pipe extending from the Chikyu to the drill bit at the
bottom of the hole will be over three miles long! Q: How many people work on the ship at a time?
Name: Ian Name of answerer: Uisdean Nicholson Specialty: Sedimentology Country: Scotland There are 25 scientists working on the ship but many more people are needed to run the ship. There are about 150 people on board in total including the captain and crew, drillers, technicians, cooks, cleaners and many more. Half of the crew works during the day and the other half works at night, so the action never stops! Another answer: Name of answerer: Yujin Kitamura
The maximum capacity of the Chikyu is 150 persons. At this moment, we have 148 people onboard including 26 scientists, 40 marine crew, 42 drillers, 6 operation intendants, 20 laboratory technicians, and 14 others (third party engineers, publication assistant and so on). In most of the departments, we have a crew change every two weeks and they stay for four weeks, and so that the number of onboard personnel can change in some range. Only scientists stay for whole expedition period (two months in case of ongoing Exp. 316). -------------- Q: What do you have to study to do what you are doing? Daniel Another answerer: Arito Sakaguchi Various subjects such as geology, physics, chemistry,
biology and mathematics are very useful for this type of
work. However, your interest in nature is as important as
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