Colossal Corer

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November 6, 2006

A 50-meter (165-foot) long coring system nearing completion at WHOI will enable paleoceanographers to reconstruct past climates back tens of millions of years and expand the coring capabilities of the U.S. academic research fleet.  The Institution’s 279-foot research vessel Knorr, one of the largest ships in the fleet, has been modified to accommodate the new system, which is completely automated. The one-of-a-kind system will enable the  U.S. scientific community to collect large diameter sediment cores around the world  to better understand the mechanisms that lead to rapid climate change and to reconstruct variations in ocean circulation on short time scales. A test cruise is planned in late 2007.