Taiwan plans to join the US, Japan and South Korea to survey the Pacific tectonic plate with locally built ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) next year, which would allow scientists to chart new research areas, Academia Sinica Institute of Earth Sciences research fellow Kuo Ban-Yuan (郭本垣) said.
The opportunity arose after he led a team of Taiwanese researchers to deploy an OBS array in the Northern Okinawa Trough onboard the research vessel Legend (勵進) from 2018 to last year in collaboration with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the University of the Ryukyus, Kuo told the Taipei Times on March 16.
Inaugurated in May 2018, the 2,629 tonne Legend is managed by the National Applied Research Laboratories’ Taiwan Ocean Research Institute (TORI).
Photo courtesy of Academia Sinica research fellow Kuo Ban-Yuan
It was the first time that Taiwanese and Japanese scientists had cooperated on research of this kind and scale within Japan’s exclusive economic zones, he said.
He thanked Taiwan-Japan Cultural and Economic Association honorary chairman Cheng Chi-Yao (鄭祺耀) and former Japanese representative to Taiwan Mikio Numata for their help, which made the voyages possible.
In September 2018, they deployed 35 OBSs in the trough and recovered 33 of them nine months later, Kuo said.
The survey found that earthquakes below the northern trough can happen at depths of up to 300km, deeper than a previous observation of nearly 200km, he said.
Once the team has published the first round of their findings, the OBS data would be made available on the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center or other platforms, he said.
Kuo said he is to lead a team to deploy an OBS array in the central Pacific Ocean in March next year, joining other academics from the US, Japan and South Korea to create the western wing of a Pacific array, which, when complete, would be made of more than 100 OBSs across the Pacific Plate — the world’s largest tectonic plate.
The Taiwanese team is to deploy 20 of the devices — 10 of them alongside ocean floor electro-magnetometers provided by the University of Tokyo — in an area where the crust is estimated to be 180 million years old — the oldest part of the Pacific Plate, Kuo said.
The seafloor between Guam and Hawaii is a “purer” area, with less volcanic activity and fewer crustal faults, allowing for observations of the fundamental workings of the lithosphere and asthenosphere, the top two layers of the Earth, he said.
The ocean is 5,000m deep there, he said.
Unlike satellites, which allow space-ground communications, marine geophysicists must recover the seismometers to get high-quality data, as frequent acoustic communication is too costly and not feasible, he said.
Despite the risks, more seafloor-based missions are needed, as land-based instruments have almost reached their limits, Kuo said.
The indigenous OBS development, which began in 2008, was led by National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU), TORI and Kuo’s lab, said TORI director-general Wang Chau-Chang (王兆璋), a former NSYSU Institute of Undersea Technology chairman.
The broadband seismometers can receive signals from nearly 20,000km away, Wang said.
They designed a leveling device to ensure that the seismic sensors sit stably regardless of unevenness on the seafloor and their high-energy-density lithium battery pack can last a year, he said.
In addition to the Taiwanese team, only certain laboratories in the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, France and China are capable of integrating an OBS’ hardware and software systems, he said.
Pusan National University in South Korea has purchased two from TORI, Wang said.
Developing more survey instruments instead of purchasing them from elsewhere is key to boosting research and industrial capacity, Kuo said.
As the nation is launching more research ships, domestic scientists have the opportunity to embark on bolder projects, he said, adding that hopefully the government would support more integrated Earth science projects.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS