By Qiu Quanlin (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-23 08:16

GUANGZHOU: Scientific findings on the ocean floor by the nation's first research vessel of "Dayang Yihao", or Ocean No 1, is of great significance to earthquake studies, a top scientist said.

Setting off from this southern city Thursday on its 20th global tour, the vessel will travel about 34,000 nautical miles through the eastern, northwestern and southwestern Pacific Ocean and the southwestern Indian Ocean for about 250 days.

"Further exploration of the ocean floor will be carried out during the voyage. And we believe that scientific findings will help promote earthquake studies," Tao Chunhui, the chief scientist on the vessel, said.

"We are better equipped and will achieve more. Most of the equipment we have brought along this time is hi-tech and developed domestically.

"We have a remotely operated underwater vehicle capable of operating and collecting samples at a depth of 3,500 m," he said.

Tao said the mission this time will also focus on the exploration of active hydrothermal vents, or "black smokers", in the southwestern Indian Ocean.

Black smokers are formed when super-heated water emanates from the ocean floor.

On the vessel's 19th tour, scientists, for the first time in the country's history of deep-sea exploration, discovered active hydrothermal vents on a ridge in the Indian Ocean.

"The geological structure is quite complicated. We will further explore it, especially the distribution of hydrothermal sulphide around the vent area," Tao said.

He said that research into microscopic organisms on the smoky ocean floor could shed light on the origins of life.

The vessel started its maiden global tour in 2005 after the United Nations International Seabed Authority granted China the right to conduct explorations in a 150,000-sq-km area of international waters in 1991. Scientists will also carry out research on more mineral resources beneath the ocean floor, and biological genes, Xu Zhiliang, an official with the South China Sea Bureau, said.

The vessel is scheduled to return to the eastern coastal city of Qingdao in January next year.