sediment cores Archives - State of the Planet

Sediments That Tell a Story: Patagonian Ice Field Sediment Cores Reveal Glacial Waxing and Waning Over Thousands of Years

A recent study uses a sediment core to reconstruct paleoclimate in the early and middle Holocene and Neoglacial periods.

by |May 5, 2023

At 90, Still Studying Ancient Pollen

Lamont’s Linda Heusser turned 90 years old on April 12, and the only birthday present she really wanted was another sediment core to study.

by |April 15, 2022
sub-bottom profile showing folded strata

Return of the R/V Pelican to Ocho Rios, Jamaica

The expedition discovered stresses along an underwater plate boundary and a record of historic and pre-historic earthquakes, which will shed light on the geohazard risks for Jamaica and Haiti.

by Cecilia McHugh |February 2, 2022
Storm moon and rough seas along the Jamaica Passage.

High Winds, Rough Seas, and Winch Problems

Researchers studying earthquake hazards in the Caribbean faced several challenges at sea, from rough weather to equipment failures.

by Cecilia McHugh |January 20, 2022
water clouds and city in the distance

Mapping Offshore Faults in Kingston Bay

Motion along these faults is associated with the 1907 Kingston earthquake, which shook the capital of the island with a magnitude of 6.2

by Cecilia McHugh |January 19, 2022

WOW-ing and RAW-ing in the South Pacific

Despite all the “Waiting on Weather” and “Running Away from Weather,” the expedition recovered exciting new sedimentary climate records in the remote and notoriously stormy Southern Ocean.

by |August 7, 2019
selfie on top of drill derrick

How a Drilling Ship Pulls Cores From 2.5 Miles Below the Sea

Recovering ancient seafloor sediments requires complicated machinery and a skilled crew.

by |July 19, 2019
long core carried down catwalk

Wiggle Wrangling on a Core-Drilling Ship

A scientist explains how she lines up wiggles on a screen to recover the missing layers in cores drilled from the bottom of the ocean.

by |July 16, 2019
sediment cores on table

After a Long Wait, Expedition 383 Drills its First Seafloor Core

It took six days to sail to Point Nemo, the most inaccessible point of the ocean on this planet, to drill a sample from the ocean floor.

by |July 11, 2019
Small glass vials containing seeds.

Tools of the Trade: A Peek Inside the Bog-Coring Lab of Dorothy Peteet

What’s a bog corer? And how do seeds help scientists learn about the earth’s past? A paleoecologist explains the most important items in her toolkit.

by |December 19, 2018