The Gulf Coast Repository: Instrumented Facility for Analysis of Scientific Ocean Drilling Cores

With the conclusion of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), the laboratories and instruments of the JOIDES Resolution (JR) are now operational in the newly renovated laboratory space of the Gulf Coast Repository (GCR) at Texas A&M University. The facility is available to academic researchers (U.S. and abroad), as well as commercial customers. This includes individual researchers, small and large research teams, and legacy projects such as Scientific Projects using Ocean Drilling ARChives (SPARCS). The instrumented facility can be used to make new measurements on the over 150 km of core housed at the GCR. Additionally, the facility can process new cores acquired by future scientific ocean drilling coring projects conducted from mission-specific platforms, on cores collected from other coring projects, and on discrete geologic samples. The instrumented GCR maintains an almost identical suite of analytical capabilities as those that were available on the JR. This includes multi-sensor loggers for measuring P-wave velocity, magnetic susceptibility, density, natural gamma ray counts, and color reflectance. Imaging and X-radiography loggers, a superconducting rock magnetometer, microscopes and SEM-EDS, as well as ICP-OES, CHNS, and XRD analysis are also available. The previous GCR instrumentation, including two XRF core scanners and a new hyperspectral scanner remain available. Other peripheral devices, such as a core splitter, allow for the processing of new cores. Workshops, educational and training exercises can also be held at the GCR. To provide long-term viability and equitable access to instrumentation, a user-fee model will support maintenance and repair of instruments and replacement of consumables. Combined with experienced technical and science staff, the instrumented GCR will facilitate new scientific ocean drilling research, training, and outreach opportunities in the onshore environment.