Polarstern Core Repository

The section Marine Geology curates and archives sediment cores from both polar oceans which were taken by RV Polarstern since 1983. The collection comprises more than 4000 cores from gravity, piston, kastenlot and giant box corers with a total length of more 12000 m as well as samples from multi corers.

Additional 4000 m of cores from other expeditions supplement this polar sediment collection. These include sediment cores of Heincke (HE215, HE250, HE277, HE438, HE443), Merian (MSM12, MSM31, MSM84), Sonne (SO202, SO213, SO239, SO264), Marion Dufresne (MD152, MD159), Akademik Boris Petrov (1997, 1999, 2000, 2001), Akademik Golitsyn (1994) and Professor Logachev (1994). The work halves of cores from the Cape Roberts Project are also maintained by the AWI repository.

Lacustrine sediments cored from lakes in the Arctic and Antarctic are archived by the section Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems at AWI Potsdam.

Cores are stored at 4°C and an air humidity limited at 35 % in sealed D-tubes.

The repository is open to the scientific community for sampling after approval of sample requests by the section Marine Geology.

The AWI Core Repository is operated in close cooperation with the Bremen Core Repository (BCR).