GEOMAR-Lithothek : [Geomarine Sample Collections]

Information about geomarine sample collections should be recallable at any time and sample material should be permanently available for scientific examination. This can only be achieved by responsible archiving high quality samples in a collection and by documenting core information in databases of a network of world ocean sediment and rock collections. Science is in permanent progress. New questions are raised and new examination methods for the marine sediment and oceanic crust record are eveloped continuously to improve our understanding of hydrothermal, oceanographic and atmospheric processes. New and refined methods for studying marine sediment records allow to examine the sedimentary environment in more and more detail to monitor even short term changes. For example, studies of the Holocene sedimentary record are essential for an assessment of the distribution of pollutants and their impact on sea floor environments. Sediment core and oceanic crust records in archives are an indispensable part of geomarine research facilities. They are of major significance for the implementation of national and international projects to understand marine environmental changes. Scientific documents with guidelines for data collection, archiving and sampling were prepared on national and international levels under the auspices of PAGES and IMAGES to ensure a global array of high quality marine sedimentary records (Shackleton et al., 1990, Pisias et al., 1993). The core collection in Kiel presently consists of more than 2000 m of sediment samples from all oceans. Standard procedures for systematic collection of this material are used to keep the core material available for all scientists and for many decades. The cores are stored in sealed plastic tubes, which contain water saturated sponges to prevent the core from drying out, shrinking and cracking. Cold-storage rooms are used for splitted and unsplitted core sections to preserve deep ocean temperature conditions (~ 4°C)