Hard Core

Michael Toomey (front) and Chris Maio, of the Coastal Systems Group, provide small boat support for a coring platform, the R/V Arenaria (pictured in the distance), off the Newfoundland coast. The team collected numerous 30 foot long sediment cores from water depths ranging from 160 to more than 280 feet. Sediment cores can lend insight into our past by archiving storm activity, sea level changes, and ocean circulation patterns. Together with data from the U.S. East Coast, this new information can help recreate a more comprehensive view of climate in the northwest Atlantic.(Photo by Richard Sullivan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)