Top-class, new generation sediment coring on Research Vessel Marion Dufresne

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, the PAGEs-endorsed IMAGEs program (International Marine Past Global Change study, http://www. images-pages.org/) supported 18 seagoing expeditions onboard the 120-meter-long Research Vessel Marion Dufresne. this vessel, operated by the French Paul-Emile Victor Polar Institute, was equipped with an in-house-developed, unique sediment coring facility, called CALYPsO, which allowed for the retrieval of high-quality, long marine cores at sites of high sedimentation rates. the vessel currently holds the world record for the longest marine core ever retrieved-64.5 m. these cores enabled the comparison of marine and ice-core records at the same resolution for the first time, and tremendously improved the understanding of past oceans dynamics.