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.