Geological sampling and coring was one of the major topics of Polarstern during ARK-VIIIl3 of ARCTIC'91. There had been two major approaches (i) to recover undisturbed surface and near surface samples for biological, paleoecological, geochemical and physical property investigations and (ii) to recover as undisturbed and long sediment sequences as possible for the various stratigraphic (stable isotope stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, paleomagnetics, AMS 14C, etc.), paleoenvironmental and sedimentological investigations. Giant box corer PS2185-3 was taken on the Lomonosov Ridge.