The 500 million dollar Japanese deep sea drill named CHIKYU, has been completed and is currently being tested. The drill is capable of reaching depths of over 7000 meters. To date, the furthest depth reached has been just over 2000 meters.
Cores can be analyzed at the floating laboratory, but the Japan agency has also established a core sample research institute in Kochi, southwestern Japan, for more in-depth examination.
The possible areas of advance form a long and varied list: climate change over the centuries, atmospheric composition, mantle core and plate dynamics, marine ecosystems and extremophiles, or animals that can exist under conditions of extreme temperature or pressure.
Drilling Through the Earth's Crust
Drill
