Scientists Set New Record of the Deepest Water Site Ever Drilled and Cored in Ocean Drilling History

Ocean exploration is not an easy pursuit and involves several complex steps, such as the drilling of ocean holes. This step has been implemented by several vessels across decades. On May 14, 2021, the Research Vessel Kaimei in a drilling process achieved a world record, according to IODP Expedition 386 Japan Trench Paleoseismology.

The vessel drilled the deepest coring site in the ocean to date at IODP Expedition 386 Site M0081. The officials claim that the water depth in the region is around 8023 m. The vessel's crew put the 40-meter-long Giant Piston Corer (GPC) inside the water at 09:20 local time. The equipment took around two hours and 40 minutes to create the deepest ocean hole in the history of humankind. Before the 2021 pursuit, the record of the deepest ocean hole was held by a site in the Mariana Trench. Around 50 years ago, the research vessel Glomar Challenger drilled the hole. Glomar Challenger managed to make a hole that reached 4.3 miles (7,000 m) below the surface

The site is present off the coast of Japan, in the Pacific seabed, according to Live Science. The hole is nearly 5 miles (8,000 m) below the Pacific Ocean's surface, and was made by the researchers primarily to understand the area's earthquake history. The hole site is reportedly very close to the epicentre of the Tohoku-oki earthquake, which happened back in 2011 and exhibited a magnitude of 9.1. Tohoku-oki resulted in a massive tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The vessel collected a 120-foot-long (37 m) sediment core from the site, and they hope that its examination will give them insights about the trench's earthquake history.

The sediment core set another record, as it was the deepest sub-sea level sample ever collected by experts, stated IODP Expedition 386 Japan Trench Paleoseismology. The sample was taken from 8060.74 mbsl (meters below sea level). This beats the previous record of 6889.5 mbsl from Site C0019E. Experta claimed that the records wouldn't have been possible without the hard work put in by the vessel's officials. "We greatly acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the Captain and his crew to safely carry out such challenging ultra-deep water coring operations and look forward to now undertaking scientific analyses on these samples from the deepest of the deep,"  the expedition’s co-chief scientist, Michael Strasser, shared.

Such holes are valuable as ocean exploration remains a nascent subject for humans, according to the BBC. Only 5% of the world's oceans have been analyzed by experts. Data keeps changing as people learn more about the expansive body. For years, the Sansha Yongle Blue Hole in the South China Sea was considered the deepest point in the oceans. Further examination, though, has now shifted the honor to Taam Ja' Blue Hole off the coast of Mexico, which could also be hiding an underwater network of caves.

Though an impressive achievement, this is not the deepest hole ever made by humans, stated Live Science. This honor goes to the Kola Superdeep Borehole in the northern Kola Peninsula of Russia. It was drilled back in 1989, after around two decades of efforts by Russian scientists. Kola Superdeep Borehole has a depth of 7.6 miles (12,200 m) below the surface. The hole gave geologists multiple samples of the continental crust.