SIO Geological Collections - Cores & Dredges

Please visit/bookmark http://gs.ucsd.edu/gc for a newer version of this web site. We are in the process of making our databases searchable and providing a virtual tour of the Geological Collections on the web.

LOCATION: S.I.O. campus in DSDP-West Building and nearby Seaweed Canyon (8603 La Jolla Shores Dr).

HOLDINGS: The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) Geological Collections are composed of five major types of material: ocean bottom sediment cores, sea-floor dredge hauls, land samples, microscope slides, and residue samples. The 6500 CORES ( ~ 15,000 core sections) and over 2000 DREDGE hauls represent the major portion of the Collections.

The Collections include radiolarian and lithologic slides from many SIO cores. Considerable bulk sediment collected on Scripps expeditions and samples from many land based locations are also curated.

The Geological Collections houses one of eight international DSDP/ODP Micropaleontological Reference Center Collections containing samples of foraminifera, nannofossils, diatoms, radiolaria and sediment lithologies recovered by DSDP/ODP.

SAMPLE LOCALITIES: Sediments and rocks are from the World Ocean, mostly in low and middle latitudes; the largest percentage are from the Pacific. Land samples are from the American, European and African continents; island samples come chiefly from Pacific and Caribbean Islands.

CONTACT:  Warren Smith, Assistant Curator        
          Geological Collections 
          Scripps Institution of Oceanography
          University of California, San Diego
          9500 Gilman Drive
          La Jolla, CA 92093-0231
 
	  email: wsmith@ucsd.edu
          Phone:  (619) 534-2037   
            FAX:  (619) 534-0784

CURATOR:  Dr. Wolfgang H. Berger wberger@ucsd.edu

STAFF:
Dr. Wolfgang H. Berger - Foraminiferal research  (619) 534-9675  wberger@ucsd.edu
Dr. Annika Sanfilippo -  Radiolarian research    (619) 534-2049  asanfilippo@ucsd.edu
Mr. Warren L. Smith -    Collections management  (619) 534-2037  wsmith@ucsd.edu
Ms. Paula Worstell -     Sediment descriptions   (619) 534-2037  pworstell@ucsd.edu

Facility tours and discussions are conducted to educate students and researchers about the basic marine geology represented in the Collections.

Another function is to provide descriptions of cores and dredge hauls in the collections to the U.S. National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) in Boulder, Colorado. Database searches for cores and dredges from SIO and other sources, using any of a large variety of parameters, may be conducted via NGDC on the Internet.

GEOLOGICAL SAMPLE DISTRIBUTION POLICY: There are established procedures to safeguard the integrity of the collections, and to maintain up-to-date information. In certain cases these procedures affect the availability of the materials. All requests require the approval of the SIO Curatorial Committee. For samples acquired in the last 5 years, approval is also needed from the PI who collected the material being requested. Samples are on "proprietary hold" for a nominal 2 year period. This hold may be extended by a PI still actively working on the material.

AVAILABILITY OF THE VARIOUS TYPES OF MATERIALS: In general, the most readily available samples are material from rock dredges, bulk sediment, and sediment core material below 15 cm core depth. Samples from near the top of cores are in greater demand and are distributed sparingly. That material as well as material from the archive half of any core is available only after close scrutiny of a request by the SIO Curatorial Committee. Sampling is carried out in such a way as to avoid depleting any interval if possible.

SCIENTIFIC RESULTS: Effective use of samples is important to the Geological Collections. Obtaining published or unpublished results based on use of samples from the Collections is vital to the operation. A researcher's subsequent sampling request is dependent upon receipt of these results. Continued national funding for curation of the Collections is dependent on the number of samples being distributed and the scientific papers resulting from work on them.

RELATED GEOLOGICAL COLLECTION: The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) maintains a West Coast Repository on the Scripps campus. That repository contains Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) cores from the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. Gerald Bode (jbode@ucsd.edu) is the repository superintendent and local contact. Requests for sample materials from ODP cores should be directed to ODP headquarters at Texas A & M in College Station, Texas. Repository staff may also be contacted via wcr@cook.tamu.edu.

RADIOLARIAN LITERATURE: Here we post electronic versions of literature on radiolarians that we have prepared, in order to save other researchers the trouble of duplicating this work. Eventually, we may post also some radiolarian data.

FELDSPAR

DOLOMITE

RADIOLARIA

SILICOFLAGELLATES

QUARTZ