We are apart of the Ocean Core Academy 2025! We spent the morning getting to know each other with ice breakers and understanding what we are all hoping and wanting to get out of this new program. We had time to take a tour of the lab in the Texas A&M International Ocean Discovery Building. We were able to go into the chemistry lab, the refrigerator that holds all of the core samples, (FUN FACT: if you put all the core samples in a line it would span to about 90 miles) the back of the lab that has all of the high tech machines, and finally looking through a microscope at microfossils!

An example we saw on the section we were looking at under the microscope was a Benthic foram. We were also able to understand some of the machines that are located in the back of the lab. A SHIL (Section Half Image Logger) helped us retrieve thin laminated sediment dispositions from the RGB values. The Section Half Multi Sensor Logger helped us get raw intensity values/data at different wavelengths to correlate the different minerals and sediment that was in the core sample. We also got to see the XSCAN which takes images/scans of the core sample in 2D and shows the density difference throughout the whole core sample.

We were also able to learn how to do a smear slide on core samples. This is a method used to examine fine-grained sediments like mud and helps to identify the types of sediment and their components.

While we did learn so much, we still have a whole week left to explore and understand all the Core Academy has to offer! Thanks for tuning in, I hope you enjoyed and will join us again tomorrow!

-Isabella G.

XRF Core Scanner

SHIL

Super Conducting Rock Magnetometer

Benthicforam