State-of-the-art Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) technology will be used from early next year to gather information on fault activity under the sea, the Academia Sinica's Institute of Earth Sciences said yesterday.
The institute said it would construct four OBS units in collaboration with the US Geological Survey's Science Center for Coastal and Marine Geology in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Kuo Ban-yuan (
OBS technology is designed to record the earth's movement under water. Kuo said the technology would help scientists learn more about "seaquakes."
"By using the OBS technology, we can locate the origin of a temblor more precisely and know more details about related geological mechanisms," Kuo said.
Previously, Taiwanese seismologists have focused their efforts on earthquakes with epicenters under land masses and associated plate tectonics and seismic motions.
Although existing land seis-mometers form a moderately useful alarm network, and help scientists gain seismic information in a short period of time, measuring tremors from more distant earthquakes originating under the ocean has remained a challenge.
Kuo said that construction of Taiwan's first OBS units will start in the US in September.
The institute will then send two engineers and a researcher to Hawaii to learn how to place the seismometers on the ocean floor.
The OBS units are scheduled to be shipped to Taiwan at the end of this year. Early next year, the Academia Sinica will install the units with assistance from American experts.
Kuo said it was urgent that Taiwan adopt the OBS technology because the nation's east sits squarely on the intersection of the Euroasian Plate and the Philippine Plate.
Seismologists would like to know if ocean-floor faults are generated in this area as well as answer other questions relating to tectonic movement.
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