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Piston Corer

The Piston corer is a long, heavy tube plunged into the seafloor to extract samples of mud sediment. A piston inside the tube allows scientists to capture the longest possible samples, up to 90 feet in length. They are simple and elegant in design; in 1947, scientist Maurice Ewing said that a piston corer "brings up samples of the ocean floor just as a housewife cores an apple." As the piston corer penetrates the seafloor, the piston inside stops at the sediment surface. The action of the piston creates a pressure differential at the top of the ediment column. This allows the soft material to enter the core liner without disruption.

Spade Corer

A spade corer, also known as a spade box corer, is a specialized tool used in marine and freshwater sediment sampling. It's designed to collect intact cylindrical samples of sediment from the seafloor or lakebed, providing valuable information about the composition, structure, and history of the sediment layers.

The spade corer consists of a heavy metal frame with a hollow, cylindrical coring chamber at the bottom. This chamber is open at the bottom to allow sediment to enter during deployment. The top of the corer is typically attached to a rope or cable, which is used to lower the corer to the seafloor or lakebed. The entire assembly is designed to penetrate the sediment, capturing a core sample as it's pushed into the sediment layer.

Core Splitter

A core splitter is a specialized tool used in geology and paleontology to prepare sediment or rock core samples for further analysis. It's designed to split a cylindrical core sample into two halves longitudinally, exposing the internal structure and layers of the sample. This process allows researchers to study the core's composition, sedimentary layers, and geological features in greater detail.

Core splitters vary in design, but they generally consist of a durable frame with mechanisms for securely holding the core sample.