Investigation of seafloor displacement, submarine landslide and sediment dynamics related to the 2011 Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake along the Japan Trench, and ROV operations to ocean bottom instruments and observatories

2011年3月11日，日本最大的岛屿本州岛发生9级地震。它是由太平洋板块与北美板块支流碰撞而形成的紧张局势的痉挛释放引发的。震中距离海岸70公里，部分岛屿、大陆架和大陆斜坡向东移动了50米，海床上升了5米。这些移动的结果，包括可能的大型潜艇坍塌，造成了高达40米的海啸，摧毁了海岸的大片地区，夺走了大约2万人的生命。德国和日本的联合考察队将使用ROV、AUV、多波束、声学、重力取样器和多取心仪器对地震区进行调查，以确定地震造成的变化，找回埋藏的仪器，并取回沉积物岩心。研究结果将有助于更好地了解地震和海啸的发生过程和机制。

On March 11, 2011, Japan's largest island, Honshu, was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake. It was triggered by a convulsive release of tension that had built up through the collision of the Pacific Plate with a spur of the North American Plate. The epicenter was located 70 km off the coast, and parts of the island, the shelf, and the continental slope were shifted up to 50 m toward the east, and the sea floor was lifted by up to 5 m. As a result of these movements, including possibly large submarine slumps, a tsunami up to 40 m high was created that devastated broad segments of the coast and claimed around 20,000 human lives. The earthquake region shall be investigated by a joint German-Japanese expedition, using a ROV, AUV, multibeam, parasound, gravity corer and multicorer in order to determine the changes caused by the earthquake, recover buried instruments, and retrieve sediment cores. The results will contribute to a better understanding of the course of events and the mechanisms of the earthquake and tsunami.