Marine sediment core collection methods and analytical techniques for shallow water sub-seafloor acoustic characterization

Abstract

Collection of intact sub-seafloor sediment samples from aqueous environments requires a suite of coring and drilling tools that vary in complexity, size, and cost as a function of the location, thickness, and analysis requirements of the sediment to be recovered. In shallow water, continental shelf environments such as the Mud Patch offshore southern New England, piston-, gravity-, and vibra-coring techniques allow for the collection of continuous sediment cores that can exceed 10 m in length through a variety of fine- and coarse-grained sediments. Piston and gravity corers, which penetrate the seafloor through a combination of system weight and velocity, operate most effectively in clay and silt dominated materials, recovering relatively undisturbed cores suitable for a wide range of sedimentological, geotechnical, and acoustical analyses. Recovered cores proceed through a series of non-destructive and destructive testing stages to fully characterize the sediments, beginning with physical properties logg...