Kick-off meeting

The QuakeRecNankai project kicked off with a meeting in Japan in May. The European collaborators were represented by Marc de Batist from Gent University, Vanessa Heyvaert from the Geological Survey of Belgium, Aurelia Hubert-Ferrari from Liège University and Helmut Brückner from Cologne University. Osamu Fujiwara, Masanobu Shishikura, Yoshiki Sato, Yousuku Miyairi and Yusuke Yokoyama made up the Japanese contingent. The team met at Tsukuba, home of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) for two productive days of meetings. 

As well as providing a chance to discuss the current state of research in south central Japan, the team focussed on the extensive logistics involved with a multinational research project involving extensive field work at a large number of sites. The kick-off meeting also provided an opportunity an excursion to some of the sites that we plan to investigate in detail this autumn. This trip included a visit to the Mount Fuji Research Institute and a tour of the lowlands surrounding Lake Hamana. The team will return in October 2014 to commence work on the Fuji Five Lakes, Lake Hamana and the Hamana coastal lowlands.  

The team investigates a bed of oyster shells on the north western shore of Lake Hamana as the weather starts to close in. 

Extensive areas of the lowlands around Lake Hamana are used for rice cultivation. These fields will hopefully be dry when we return to investigate the sediments that lie beneath them in October.

QRN team update

We've updated the QRN Team page with profiles of the collaborators from two of the Belgian institutions - the Geological Survey of Belgium in Brussels and The Renard Centre for Marine Geology, Gent University. We'll be adding more information from our colleagues from the University of Liège, Tokyo University, AIST and the University of Cologne soon.

Welcome to the QuakeRecNankai blog!

This is the blog of the BELSPO BRAIN-be funded project QuakeRecNankai. This multinational and multidisciplinary project focusses on earthquakes and tsunamis along the Nankai Trough in south central Japan. For more information about the project, check out the About QRN page. We'll be putting up information about the project partners on the QRN Team page over the next few weeks. 

We'll be using this blog to update you on the progress of the project and in particular our fieldwork in Japan. 

You can also follow us on twitter @QuakeRecNankai