Aqua Survey has developed a sediment vibracoring system incorporating electromagnetic transmission and receiver coil technology called Smart Core™ vibracoring.  This breakthrough technology signals the operator when the nosecone of the core barrel is near a metallic object, allowing the operator to greatly reduce the probability of making contact.

Aqua Survey has roots going back to the mid-1970s when surficial sediment grab samples met most sampling requirements.  As the environmental industry matured, so did our sampling methods.  We began gravity coring in 1977, piston coring in 1979 and vibracoring in 1984. It is often desirable to collect sediment vibracores in areas with known or unknown submerged or sediment buried utilities, unexploded ordnance (UXO), cultural resources or other unknown objects to be avoided.

Areas of known military waste often need to be assessed for contaminants leaching into the aquatic environment.  The use of the Smart Core™ can safeguard field technicians from UXO during coring activities.  The Smart Core™ can collect up to 20-feet of a continuous 4-inch diameter core in a flexible inner-core liner.  Electromagnetic data are viewed real-time and logged simultaneously into a digital file.

To assess the spread of environmental contaminants from decaying MEC/UXO, the field sediment coring technician must be safeguarded from striking the MEC/UXO, or including smaller MEC/UXO’s (<4 inches) into the sediment core sample.  Continuous sediment cores up to 40 feet long are commonly collected as part of field sampling campaigns.

Traditional EM MEC/UXO surveys can only detect objects buried in the top meter or two of the sediment.  Without a nose cone mounted detector on the coring device, the operator would be at risk when sampling beyond the detection range of traditional EM systems.  Detector coils must be designed, prototyped and field tested that are able to withstand the associated destructive forces of a high-powered vibracore system.