Sediment Corers
Sediment cores are used to sample the organisms that live on or just below the surface of the ocean floor (the benthos), while also displaying the structure of the sediment by boring a large tube into the benthos and then raising the column. Sediments can retain their stratigraphy incorporating a range of environmental proxies that provide long-term records of environmental change.
Sediment corers allow scientists to retrieve information from sites where sediments cannot be clearly resolved from seismic data, and this provides records of boundary conditions on ice sheet flow, ice sheet history and the presence of life in subglacial environments. On the expedition the team will be using a 6m single barrier corer, one multi-corer and one box corer provided by the Netherland Institute of Ocean Research (NIOZ). They will be used for collecting sediment cores for geological research and for biological sampling of seafloor fauna and flora.