The purpose of seabed sampling is to ensure the accuracy of the interpretation of the acoustic-seismic profiles, and to acquire material for sediment studies. On the basis of sediment samples, it is possible to investigate e.g. stratigraphy, thickness of the sedimentary units, grain composition as well as geochemical properties of the marine sediments

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Possible sampling sites will be selected based on the acoustic-seismic profile. Depending on the research purpose, samples are taken either with long sediment corer (e.g. vibrohammer cores, piston corer, gravity corer) or surface sediment corer (e.g. Gemax corer, Box corer, Van Veen Grab sampler, Oscorer).

The piston corer -type sampler is used for taking the long sediment cores from soft substrates. For taking of the long sediment cores from hard substrates (such as till, sand or gravel), vibro hammer corer is used.

Gemax corer (maximum sample length 0.5 m down from the seabed surface) is used for taking sediment cores from soft sediment bottom. It is used mainly for environmental studies, e.g. investigating the short-term changes in the nutrient and heavy metal loading. The principle of sampling is to recover undisturbed sediment sample from the seabed.

Onboard research vessel the sediment core/sample material is described and photographed. The geological interpretation with possible drawings are added to the observation forms/sheets. In general, the subsamples are stored for laboratory examinations. The results of grain size analyses and geochemical analyses are stored in the Labtium laboratory database and in the GTK database.

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