Grace Delgado (UNH) and Charlie Casey (Union) are pictured here preparing core tubes for the core catcher sections. Once a core tube has fully penetrated the sediment, the tube must be withdrawn without losing sample. Core catchers help to counteract the suction occurring at the base of the core tube as it is being withdrawn, literally "catching" the sediment at the bottom of the core. A little bit of each core catcher section is sampled and used for immediate paleoecological analysis back in the science lab (see our previous post on diatoms featuring Dr. Pedro Tapia).