Japanese drill ship fails to reach the earthquake-generating zone | Hacker News Reader

Japanese drill ship fails to reach the earthquake-generating zone

nature.com

68 pointsdaddylonglegs18 comments

I do not understand this article. According to wikipedia, the deepwater horizon drilled to 10,683 m in 1,259 m of water. Acccording to the nature article, the deepest ever holes drilled were successively the 2,900 and 3,200 m deep holes drilled by the Chikyu. 2,900 seems a lot less than 10,683. What is going on here?

Smithsonian says "Not surprisingly—because the crust is thinner—some deep holes have been bored through the ocean floor. The specialized Japanese drillship Chikyu claims the record for the deepest offshore hole drilled for scientific purposes—about 10,000 feet (almost 2 miles) below the sea floor, according to James F. Allan, program director for the Ocean Drilling Program at the National Science Foundation.

The oil and gas industry also claims some deep holes, on land and offshore. BP’s Deepwater Horizon holds the offshore record. The drilling rig—lost in an explosion in 2010— managed to get some 30,000 feet below the sea, or about 5 miles."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-s...

I suppose then it depends on how deep the ocean floor bed was below the ocean's surface where the Chikyu drilled that hole. If Nature is correct then it must have been in a spot of at least 20,000 ft of ocean depth (30,000deepwater - ~10,000chikyuBelowTheSeaFloor).

I think you're being overly generous to Nature. By my read, they just misinterpreted "deepest hole drilled offshore for scientific purposes" as "deepest hole drilled offshore for any purpose".

The water depth was already cited in the top-level comment:

> deepwater horizon drilled to 10,683 m in 1,259 m of water

Each drilling area has its own unique geology. Something about this specific area (e.g. heavier mud, cracks in the bed rock) led to their hole collapsing before they could reach their target depth despite trying a few different techniques.

All most likely true. And yet, the Nature article clearly states that the Chikyu set the record for deepest hole drilled. They don't qualify about unique geography or for-scientific-purposes. This is odd. I generally find that Nature tries to be accurate to a fault. Having written a "news and views" for Nature once, I find the seeming inaccuracies incomprehensible.

I pointed out above the Deepwater figure is depth from ocean surface while the Chikyu figure is depth below the ocean floor, so as long as the depth of the ocean is ~20,000 feet where the Chikyu drilled to that depth, it all checks out.

its the separation between "for science" And "for oil".

Are they trying to achieve any goals by reaching that depth other than "because the tech could be useful to have"? Out of curiousity.

I guess it’s getting late here but I read it as “the ship’s ultimate goal is to...cause enormous earthquakes”

They're trying to get rock samples from the earthquake zone to try to understand earthquake geology better, right?

Unleashing Godzilla?

Not here, please.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_Japan_(2006_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Igai_Zenbu_Chinbotsu

Here's a parody of the parody. Everything Other than Japan Sinks.

I remember digging holes in the back yard as a little boy, also remember building rock and dirt dams in the curb on rainy days.

I think this is why this article fascinates me. Hopefully, grown little kids around the world will reconsider this drilling problem and come up with an answer.

Maybe a different approach would be to have an automated robotic drilling "rig" on the ocean floor, which a ship could restock and maybe also power via a tether. As a bonus the under-sea rig could also have a data+power telemetry cable run to the shore and operations might continue even without a ship present.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem as though automation would solve any problems regarding hole collapse. Not only this, it would probably only serve to increase running costs and introduce more failure points. They have the choice of going with well tested and understood drilling methods, compared with untested automated drilling methods.

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