2015 Volume 71 Issue 2 Pages I_3-I_10
The unltradeep drilling project “M2M-MoHole to Mantle”, is one of the highest priority target of International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), an international research collaboration of Japan, US and European countries. M2M is a big science that fully requires the capability of the Deep Sea Drilling Vessel Chikyu. The purposes of the M2M project are to penetrate through the 6 km thick oceanic crust to the mantle underneath, and to recover the in-situ mantle rocks for the first time in the human history, in order to understand the nature of the Moho and mantle dynamics, to provide clues for the enigmatic origin of Earth's water and deep carbon cycle, and to explore the limit of deep subsurface biosphere. Scientists have identified three regions as potential M2M project areas; north off Hawaii Islands, off the Costa Rica and west off Baja California. They are preparing for seismic structural surveys of the candidate areas to determine the optimal site for the first MoHole.
