Sunday 11 October 2015

A new field season for QRN

Last year (Oct-Nov), the QRN team came together in Japan for conducting exploratory surveys on the Fuji Lakes and the coastal Hamana lake area. This exploration comprised the acoustic imaging of lake bottoms as well as sediment sampling in lakes and on land. Right now, a second field season has come on stream, starting with an in-depth investigation of the Hamana Lake deposits (Oct) for which Ghent University shipped a coring platform (British Antarctic Survey) to Japan. 


In preparation for this year’s fieldwork on Lake Hamana, last year’s data and samples (short gravity cores) were analysed thoroughly in order to retrieve information on prevailing depositional processes, average sedimentation rates and the possible presence and lateral extent of tsunami deposits within the lake basin. Based on that knowledge, a set of sites were selected for collecting long cores (up to 8 m of depth). Hopefully, these long records will shed light on recurrence patterns of tsunamis along the Nankai Trough.


Pouring rain during platform build-up at the Suzuki Marina in Washizu.



By using the crane of the marina, we found an easy and fast way to get the heavy platform into the water.



Conducting the last few preparations and adjustments...


... before sailing out to our coring site with the platform towed behind a boat of Tokyo University's Fisheries Institute.
       
Our catch of the day taped to the platform tripod in order to minimise disturbance of sedimentary structures.

A happy coring team!


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