Japanese drill ship fails to reach the earthquake-generating zone

Engineers gave up on that long-sought target in February, after the drill hole kept collapsing, just over 3,250 metres beneath the sea floor. Last October, Chikyu made its fourth trip to a site on the Nankai Trough known as C0002, where it had already drilled the deepest-ever hole beneath the sea floor. The MarE3 team was able to deepen the hole from just over 2,900 metres beneath the sea floor to 3,262 metres, breaking its own record for the deepest scientific ocean drilling.

Source: www.nature.com