On 12 May 2008, a destructive earthquake of magnitude Ms8.0 struck the Longmenshan region, Sichuan Province, China. This earthquake caused huge losses of people’s lives and property. During the special period after the Wenchuan earthquake and the aftershock is still ongoing, rapid scientific drilling on the Wenchuan Earthquake Fault Zone (WFSD) would provide critical data to constrain the mechanism for the Wenchuan earthquake, and improve the capability to forecast and mitigate the loss of future great earthquakes. The opening ceremony of the Wenchuan Earthquake Fault Zone Scientific Drilling (WFSD) was hold on 6 November, 2008 at Hongkou, Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province. This heralds a new stage of earthquake research. Through direct sampling on the seismic fault zone, multi-disciplinary borehole observations and tests, critical information with respect to the composition, texture and structure of the seismic fault zone at depth, physical and chemical properties of fault zone materials can be acquired. Such a rich data set is essential for us to better understand the energy budget and rupture process of large destructive earthquakes
