Marine Rock Repository
Marine samples, whose collection requires the use of heavy and costly means during oceanographic campaigns, are particularly valuable. This is why the IPGP has launched the construction of a dedicated Marine Rock Repository on its Chambon-la-Forêt site, to compensate for the closure of the Saint-Maur site where samples from the campaigns implemented by the IPGP teams were stored until now.
These samples were repackaged and stored in standard cases, each of which was assigned an IGSN code so that they could be identified in the international SESAR database.
In the spring of 2019, all marine samples were moved to a large, brand new 174 m2 building with an adjoining wet laboratory equipped with rock saws. The maximum storage capacity is not expected to be reached for about 15 years. The IPGP’s Marine Rock Repository thus makes available to the national and international community, through the SESAR portal, more than 10,000 samples mainly from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Indian Ocean. It will be one of the nodes of a national network of CNRS-INSU rock repositories currently being set up.