A German coring device (Reineck, 1958) has been improved to obtain oriented, undisturbed cores at any depth of water. The samples are rectangular in shape, 8 × 12 inches in plan and a maximum of 18 inches high. Good cores have been obtained from clayey material as well as from gravelly sand. No disturbances due to coring were observed on the collected samples. These large samples make it possible to conduct many varieties of investigations, such as study of living organisms and shear strength measurements, as soon as the sample is on deck of a ship; radiography on slices, peeling and impregnation techniques, granulometry, mineralogy, porosity, fossil content, etc. Construction and use of the box corer and applications of some of these analytical techniques are described.

From 1983 until 1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions. At the time it was the most extended data compilation on ferromanganese deposits world wide. Initially published in a proprietary format incompatible with present day standards it was jointly decided by AWI and NOAA to transcribe this legacy data into PANGAEA. This transfer is augmented by a careful checking of the original sources when available and the encoding of ancillary information (sample description, method of analysis...) not present in the NOAA-MMS database.

Supplement to: Bouma, Arnold H; Marshall, N F (1964): A method for obtaining and analysing undisturbed oceanic sediment samples. Marine Geology, 2(1), 81-99