Marine Ecosystems Research Department - jamstec japan agency ...

Japan Marine Science and Technology Center
Research Activities
Institute for Frontier Research on Earth Evolution(IFREE)
Activities during the 2002 fiscal year
On January , , two new Research Programs were started, namely Mantle-Core Dynamics and
Paleoenvironment, bringing the number of IFREE Research Programs up to the four that were initially planned. The
IFREE opening ceremony was held at the Tokyo Forum on January , . However, only one research group
was approved for each of the respective new Research Programs, and IFREE's research organization is yet to be
completed. Applications for research staff and technical research staff were invited twice during the fiscal
year, and staffs were hired. As a consequence, IFREE employed research and technical research staffs by the
end of the fiscal year. Among them, six are temporary staff and eleven are foreign scientists.
IFREE emphasized multi-disciplinary research projects during the fiscal year. Three research subjects were
selected: 'water in the interior of the Earth', 'Izu-Bonin-Mariana arc', and 'Cretaceous events', and six workshops
were held on these topics. IFREE also held 'Solid Earth simulation workshop', 'Cooperative workshop for earth science
and fluid engineering', 'IFREE summer school', 'Tectonics-geodynamics short course/workshop', and 'NSF-
IFREE workshop on Izu-Bonin-Mariana' in Hawaii. In addition, IFREE started cooperative research
projects with domestic institutions, including Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Institute for
Geothermal Sciences, Kyoto University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kochi University, Shimane University,
Okayama University of Science, National Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, and Meteorological
Research Institute, as well as with foreign institutions such as University of California at Berkeley, University of
Hawaii, University of Wisconsin, University of Southampton, and University of Edinburgh.
IFREE's research progressed significantly during the fiscal year, and about papers were presented at
domestic meetings and about papers at international meetings. Publications included English papers and
Japanese papers. Among the English papers, were published in international refereed journals. Press releases
were made on the 'Finding of a splay fault in the Nankai trough seismogenic zone', 'Hot fingers in the mantle wedge
of a subduction zone', and four other research findings. These results, and many other research accomplishments,
were published in the 'Frontier Research on Earth Evolution–IFREE Report for -'.
Research Program for Mantle Core Dynamics
1. Research Overview
The structure of the Earth's mantle and core records
a history of activity in the Earth. In the Mantle-Core
Dynamics Research Program, we perform threedimensional
imaging of the mantle and core to understand
the present status and past record of the Earth's
activity. The obtained images, along with simulated
results of convection in the mantle and core, will
enable us to reconstruct the Earth's activity in the present
and in the past, and to understand the dynamics of
Earth's evolution.
We use data from the Ocean Hemisphere Project
(OHP) Network and Deep Sea Geophysical
Observatories, which have been developed and
deployed by Japanese universities such as the
Earthquake Research Institute of the University of
Tokyo in cooperation with JAMSTEC, in order to
obtain new generation models of the Earth's interior.
We are expanding broadband seismology from landbased
observation to observation on the sea floor, and
have initiated "ocean bottom broadband seismology".
We are also starting electromagnetic imaging using
ocean bottom observations by taking advantage of the
ocean bottom environment being free from artificial
noises.
The imaging the Earth's interior should enable us to
detect thermal and chemical anomalies associated with
the mantle and core convection and delineate the convection
pattern. On the basis of the imaging results,
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