Australia’s new Marine National Facility research vessel Investigator is having new sampling equipment and devices purpose-built.
Onboard there’ll be a range of scientific instruments to take seafloor samples, and there will be a device that will take core samples of the seafloor, as far down as 7 kilometres.
Dr Lindsay Pender was recently in Coffs Harbour for the factory acceptance test for this equipment.
The corer weighs up to 3.5 tonne and is design to free fall and plunge into the seafloor when triggered.
On board a barge, we captured the testing of the equipment’s ability to be triggered, and this has been included in the August 2013 CSIROnow video, along with the other cool things CSIRO is currently doing!
Check it out! (We’re a few stories in from the start!)