Good morning or evening or whatever time it happens to be for you! I am sitting on the core table where the cores are laid out after they have been split lengthwise in a nearby room. This allows the scientists to observe what the sediments look like. They carefully look over the core sections and describe them in detail. This is also where the scientists pull out small pieces of the core to analyze. They then bring these small samples to the lab that they work in and begin the complex analysis (We will look at that another day). You can see the dark brown sediments in the core behind me. In the background, you may notice that some of the cores are covered in plastic. That is to keep them from drying out, which happens when they are left out in the air.