A LIGHTWEIGHT PNEUMATIC CORING DEVICE: 
DESIGN AND FIELD TESTS 
by 
Jonathan A. Fuller and Edward P. Metsburger 
I. INTRODUCTION 
Sediment coring devices powered by a pneumatic vibrator or hammer have 
been widely used during the past two decades for obtaining continuous sedi- 
ment cores up to 15.2 meters long in coastal marine, Continental Shelf, and 
lake sediments. These vibratory coring devices usually provide much deeper 
penetration in typical coastal, shelf and lacustrine sediments than gravity 
coring devices which are most effective in deep-sea sediments of relatively 
low shear strength. Because they are free standing on the bottom and have 
no rigid connection to the support vessel, vibratory corers are also more 
practical for open-water locales than standard barge-mounted, soil—boring 
equipment. 
Most commercial vibrator/hammer-type coring devices are large and require 
the use of a vessel at least 18.3 meters long to accommodate the equipment 
and to safely extract the core barrel from the sea floor. The larger devices 
are usually necessary to obtain cores 3 meters or more long; however, many 
sediment studies could probably be accomplished with shorter cores using 
smaller devices. Also, many surficial sampling programs could be supplemented 
by coring if economical means were available. The usefulness of a small 
vibratory corer was recently demonstrated during the Coastal Engineering 
Research Center's (CERC) Inner Continental Shelf Sediment program (ICONS). 
Out of more than 1,500 cores from coastal and Great Lakes areas collected as 
part of ICONS, about 48 percent exhibited significant lithologic changes in 
the first 1.8 meters; 31 percent showed changes in the first 1.0 meter. 
As a result of these findings, in 1979 CERC undertook an investigation of 
the feasibility of constructing a lightweight 2.4-meter-long vibrator/hammer- 
type coring device. The major criterion was that the device could be deployed 
from a relatively small, 9.1- to 18.3-meter-long coastal vessel of the type 
customarily employed by Corps of Engineers Districts, which would provide an 
in-house capability for securing cores in coastal and lake deposits. Two 
prototype models were designed and constructed by CERC in 1979. 
The Lake Erie Section, Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Divi- 
sion, Division of Geological Survey (NGS) which had a parallel interest in 
developing a coring device for their research vessel, the GS-1, joined CERC 
in a common effort to test and further develop a suitable device. After the 
design, construction, and laboratory testing of the two prototype models, 
extensive field testing was carried out from the GS-1 in various areas of 
Lake Erie during the summer of 1980. The most suitable frame and vibrator/ 
hammer device was then determined and important modifications were made based 
on these tests (see Fig. 1). The results of the tests, design drawings, and 
a description of the coring apparatus considered most usable are presented 
in this report. 
