Big Head

Sunrise illuminates the bottom of the corehead of WHOI’s new long coring system on the research vessel Knorr. The head is held fast (in its stowed position) by the jaws and cams of a hydraulic grapple, which was specially designed and built to control the motion of the corer during launch and recovery. When deployed, the core head can drive up to 150 feet of pipe into the seabed to capture a stratified sediment sample.The weight of the head can be adjusted from 3,000 to 25,000 pounds to accommodate various core barrel lengths and sediment physical properties.

(Photo by Alexander Dorsk, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)