Paleo Slide Set: Heinrich Events: Marine Record of Abrupt Climate Changes in the Late Pleistocene
CSS Hudson

Scientists use ships like the Canadian government research vessel CSS Hudson, shown here, to extract sediment 
cores from the world's oceans. Since the 1950s, thousands of cores have been collected and are now archived 
at various facilities around the world. These cores have provided a great deal of information about past 
changes in both the Earth's climate and the ecology of marine and terrestrial environments. In order to obtain 
long sediment cores from the ocean floor, researchers need relatively large ships with heavy-duty 
winches -- for example the CSS Hudson is 110 meters in length. 

Photo Credits:
Anne Jennings 
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado-Boulder Boulder, Colorado