Researchers aboard the nation’s largest research vessel, the Legend (勵進), are to return today from a scientific expedition to the South China Sea to collect data on vertical temperature changes in the sea basin, the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) said yesterday.
The government has maintained a low profile when conducting missions in the area, given disputes arising from overlapping territorial claims from Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam and China among others.
After setting off from Tainan’s Anping Port (安平港) on March 9, the 2,629-tonne vessel is to return to port today, concluding its 25-day mission that was aimed at measuring geological and weather conditions, promoting scientific collaboration and joint sea development, the NARL said.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
The research team is made up of 19 crew members and 21 researchers from the NARL’s Taiwan Ocean Research Institute, the Naval Meteorological and Oceanographic Office, National Taiwan University and National Central University, it said.
The team measured the sea basin using the vessel’s multibeam echosounder and produced the first precise map of a 4,000m-high seamount in the center of the basin, it said, adding that the mount is 676km from southwestern Taiwan’s coast.
Researchers also found fragments of sedimentary strata near the seamount, allowing them to study if the collapse of a deep sea range might trigger a tsunami, it said.
They also measured the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure and wind speed on the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) and Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), it said.
They obtained “unprecedented” data on vertical temperature changes near the center of the South China Sea Basin, in a range up to 20km in the air and 1,800m below the sea level, it said, adding that the data are valuable for boosting weather forecasting in the region.
The NARL said the team did not encounter any pressure from other countries during the mission.
The research vessel was built by Singaporean-based Triyards Marine Services at a cost of about NT$880 million (US$28.6 million at the current exchange rate) and was inaugurated in May last year.
It underwent 10 months of testing and trial runs before embarking on its first research mission, which was postponed from September last year to last month.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue