China, Chile to explore Atacama Trench in Pacific with ‘tools no other country possesses’

China and Chile are set to launch a three‑month expedition into the uncharted depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean – a “historic opportunity” to seek new forms of life and geological insights into the causes of earthquakes and tsunamis.Setting off aboard the Chinese research vessel Tan Suo Yi Hao on Monday, the researchers will cover 700km (435 miles) around the Atacama Trench, one of the deepest and least explored regions of the eastern Pacific.The expedition, three years in the making, is being led by the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the Millennium Institute of Oceanography (IDO) of the University of Concepcion, Chile.The Tan Suo Yi Hao will depart from the Chilean port city of Valparaiso for what the expedition committee has described as “the largest [such operation] in the area carried out to date”.The collaboration began with “an alliance formed years before which allows Chilean scientists to use tools that no other country currently possesses, accelerating years of research in only one mission”, the university said in a statement on January 9.The expedition will involve 33 research stations and nearly 20 submersible dives to probe the depths of the trench. The mission is seen as key to understanding subduction processes along the Pacific seismic belt – with direct implications for China, Japan, the Koreas and Southeast Asia.