Opening Ceremony February 13, 2003

Opening ceremony was held at the rig site of conduit drilling on February 13, 2003. About 50 attendees are from the MEXT (Ministry of Education, Calture, Sports, Science and Technology), Forest Agency, Ministry of Environment, Nagasaki Prefectural Geovernment, Shimabara City, scientists. Drillers etc. Over 40 press people gathered to report this ceremony.

fig01.jpg	fig02.jpg	fig03.jpg	fig04.jpg
fig05.jpg	fig06.jpg	fig07.jpg	fig08.jpg
fig09.jpg	fig10.jpg	fig11.jpg	fig12.jpg

Fig. 01 Northeastern view of Unzen volcano. From the TGE (Tohoku Geothermal Engineering Co. Ltd.) office at the base of the volcano.

Fig. 02 Close-up view of rig site on the northern slope. Right in the previous slide (Fig01).

Fig. 03 Whole view of drilling rig.

Fig. 04 Heisei Shinzan (new dome) seen on the rig deck.

Fig. 05 Principal investigators in front of the entrance of ceremony tent (Kozo Uto, John Eichelberger and Setsuya Nakada from left).

Fig. 06 Two Americans and one Chinese were invited to this ceremony (Tom Wright and China Chen with John Eichelberger). Sumio Sakuma is in right.

Fig. 07 Mr. Sugawa, Delibarator of Secretariat Section, MEXT, gave a greeting to the attendees.

Fig. 08 Mr. Yoshioka, Mayor of the Shimabara City, offered his congratulation.

Fig. 09 Nakada explained the outline of conduit drilling in behalf of scientists.

Fig. 10 SHINTO ritual was held for praying safety of drilling, following the opening ceremony.

Fig. 11 Libation was served to all attendees.

Fig. 12 Nakada explaining the drilling site to attendees in the Unzen Disaster Memorial Hall (Volcano Museum) in the city.

return to what new