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Core Collection

Deep-sea sediment cores are vital to our understanding of the past and present oceans. They record the geological history of the ocean basins, providing evidence for changing climates, emerging environments, evolving biota, and dramatic events that have altered the course of earth history.
Miocene radiolarians

The SIO collection contains nearly 6,600 cores (15,000 refrigerated core sections) collected using gravity, piston, trigger, vibra- and box-coring techniques. It is the largest collection in the U.S. (outside that of the Ocean Drilling Program) of sediments from the Pacific Ocean and also contains extensive material from the other major ocean basins.

Miocene radiolarians.
Photo: R. Norris

Microfossil Collection

Microfossils are the skeletal remains of marine organisms that either floated in the water column or lived on the sea floor. The Collections contain the raw samples, prepared microscope slides, and field notes from pioneering paleontologists who were the first to recognize and implement the use of marine microfossil remains for dating and correlating sediments. These include, for example, the very extensive Riedel/Sanfilippo radiolarian collection, M. N. Bramlette's calcareous nannofossil preparations, Fred Phleger's and Frances Parker's foraminifer collections (in part) and Patricia Doyle's microfossil fish teeth (ichthyoliths) collection.

The Collections support not only SIO faculty and student research, but also that of scientists from other domestic and non-U. S. institutions. Studies relate to virtually all fields of earth science including paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, stratigraphy, paleontology, geochemistry, geophysics, mineralogy and tectonics. Collections materials provide a viable resource for the education of graduate, undergraduate and K-12 students.