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The Long Core

The barrel of the WHOI Long Core spans the port side of the research vessel Knorr. The one-of-a-kind system can extract columns of seafloor sediments up to 150 feet long. Sediments accumulate atop the seafloor over time, so deeper cores contain material (and information) from further back in time. Seafloor cores contain clues that scientists use to study plate tectonics, climate change, mass extinctions, deep-sea life, and a host of other scientific questions. MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Emily Estes used samples from the corer to study how microbes participate in forming minerals.(Photo courtesy of Kevin King)