An inexpensive, diver-assisted percussion coring device

Mountain Lake, Giles County, Virginia, contains soft sediments from which u ndisturbed cores are logistically difficult to collect by conventional grav ity coring. Whereas other more expensive types of corers might successfully sample the sediments in this or similar aquatic systems, our new diver-ass isted percussion coring device assembled with hardware costing about $50.00 enabled flawless collection of 7 cores (100% of tries). We describe here t his percussion coring device, its operation, and probable application.