A field extruder for rapidly sectioning near-surface cores from lakes and wetlands

The soft uppermost sediments in lakes and wetlands contain important records of past environmental change. Although the technology for coring these sediments is relatively well established, there has been a continuing effort to improve the design of equipment that can provide the precise volumetric samples required for high-resolution dating and elemental analysis. Soft-sediment cores are usually sectioned near a coring site under a wide range of field conditions creating a challenge for both field crews and equipment. A new field extruder was therefore designed to simplify the process of fine-sectioning these cores in the field while improving volumetric-sampling accuracy. The new extruder is relatively light, stable, and easy to use, but sufficiently strong to extrude long continuous cores of stiff sediment if required. The key features of this extruder minimize sampling errors by enabling an operator to automate the measurement and extrusion of a pre-determined volume of sediment. The extruder was successfully field tested on a variety of sediment types in a large wetland from southern Florida, USA and proved easy to master by even inexperienced field crews.