[Please click on the photos to enlarge them, and see more information about them] Minute organisms make up the highest biomass on our planet, with myriad microscopic organisms in a single teaspoon of sea water and just as many in the top layers of the ubiquitous mud. The multicorer allows us to examine a small amount of the surface sediments. Up to eight tubes are lowered down to the sea bed and pushed into the soft sediment. As they are pulled back up, these tubes are sealed at either end so that a small plug of undisturbed mud is hauled up to the ship where it is sliced and diced for a multitude of applications such as sediment characteristics, bacterial analysis and sieving out the animals that live in various horizontal sections.
