Japan deep-sea drilling probe sets new record

April 28, 2012 03:06 pm | Updated 03:22 pm IST - TOKYO

This undated photo shows the deep-sea drilling probe ‘Chikyu’. The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology said on Friday, the ‘Chukyu’ set a new world record for depth on April 25, 2012, reaching 7,740 meters (25,400 feet) below the sea surface.

This undated photo shows the deep-sea drilling probe ‘Chikyu’. The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology said on Friday, the ‘Chukyu’ set a new world record for depth on April 25, 2012, reaching 7,740 meters (25,400 feet) below the sea surface.

A Japanese research institute says its deep-sea drilling probe has set a new world record for depth, reaching 7,740 meters (25,400 feet) below the sea surface.

The ‘Chikyu’, operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, was digging the seabed off Japan’s northern coast to take fault samples and study last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.

The agency said on Friday that the probe’s drilling pipe hit the fault zone at 6,883.5 meters (22,600 feet) undersea before reaching the target of 7,740 meters on Wednesday. That’s nearly 8 kilometres (5 miles) deep.

Maritime organizations say the U.S. vessel Glomar Challenger set the previous record of 7,049.5 meters (23,130 feet) below sea surface in the Mariana Trench in 1978.

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