• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.479-490
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• 2016

Seabed drilling system has recently been used to drill seafloor mineral resources. This case report highlights the procedure and result of sea-trial of seabed drilling system at off-shore of Japan on March, 2016 as well as briefs an international-technical trend of seabed drilling system. In case of having less than 100 m drill depth, seabed drilling system is favorable for seafloor mineral deposits which are mostly distributed within a narrow district and situated between 1000~3000 m water depth, compared with vessel-mounted drilling system. The system is featured by the remotely-operated drill gear, which has top drives, drill strings and mud system on it. The core samples are generally recovered to ship with seabed driller after a dive. In this sea-trail, recovery rate of core samples averagely shows about 55% and the recovered rocks mostly correspond to fresh and/or weak-altered basalt. In case of drilling hydrothermal ore deposit, the recovery rate would be lower than 55% because of the fragile nature of ores. Alternatively it is used to collect cutting chips through riser or bins in order to increase the recovery rates. Recently a reverse circulation method is taken considered to acquire the better cutting-chips. Three-leg type outrigger system and four-leg type leveling system are the competing landing-instruments of seabed drill system. However the landing efficiency using these gears has to be further monitored due to lack of case reports.