0631854, Pisias 0632006, Mountain This collaborative award to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oregon State University and Rutgers University provides support to test a new piston coring system that has been developed with support from the NSF Division of Ocean Sciences, and is nearing completion. This new coring system has been designed to recover large diameter, minimally disturbed piston cores up to 42 meters long, offering a major increase in capability to U.S. marine geoscientists involved in paleoclimate, paleoceanography or continental margin research, in particular. It will be installed on R/V Knorr, a large UNOLS vessel, which has been strengthened for this purpose, and the coring system includes a new, high performance winch system with synthetic cable, a new A-frame and specialized core handling system to optimize safe deployment and recovery. The tests will be carried out on the Bermuda Rise and New Jersey margin in areas well studied previously so that detailed comparisons can be carried out between the new corer and existing systems. Deployment tests will vary core length and weight, as well as different combinations of barrel wall diameters. They will address freefall length and pullout, looking carefully at rebound as a function of water depth and core weight. Testing will also address differences related to the different water depths and sediment types in the two study areas. Shipboard tests will include detailed analysis using a multi-sensor track system to measure density, magnetic susceptibility and P-wave velocity as well as sediment color. ***
