OSU Seafloor Sampling System

 

Click Play to see the corer in Action!

Sampling the seabed is a seemingly easy task that should have been solved a long time ago. In fact, collecting high quality cores, especially in sands, can be quite challenging. In addition, it is sometimes useful to have bottom photographs from the site of interest, yet it is not time efficient to be constantly switching instruments (i.e., it would best if samples and imagery could be collected on the same cast). To fill these needs we have developed a state-of-the-art seafloor sampling system: OSUSSS. The heart of OSUSSS is a hydraulically-dampened gravity corer, originally developed by Mike Bothner at the USGS-Woods Hole. More information about OSUSSS can be found on the OSUSSS homepage.