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Why preserve sediment cores?
- Sediment cores and samples are the fundamental data source for information on seabed character and recent sedimentation (and commonly contain records of environmental change).
- Unless cores are stored under optimum conditions they can dry out and fracture within months, limiting their value for further research.
- Cores are very expensive to collect
- Cores do not always demonstrate their full value within the first few years after collection. As new measurement techniques become available and new concepts evolve, existing cores can be resampled to add to the knowledge base. Major developments in our understanding of recent environmental change have come from material stored effectively in long-term core repositories. For example, The North Atlantic ‘Heinrich layers’, indicating six major collapses of the North American ice sheet during the last 60,000 years, are a prime example of the usage of stored material to, first, identify and later, to investigate in detail, a key global change phenomenon.