Borehole core collections

Collection of continuous borehole core, broken core, washings, etc. are held at Keyworth and Edinburgh, with Keyworth core store concentrating on onshore core and Gilmerton, Edinburgh specialising in offshore core. The hydrogeological materials collection, which includes core and borehole material, is housed at Wallingford.


  • Photograph of the Keyworth Core Store Onshore borehole material (including hydrocarbon wells). Approximately 200 km of core, plus about 150 km of drilling represented by cuttings. Samples are held from about 15000 boreholes. Borehole names and positions may be determined from GeoIndex.
     
  • Offshore material: Cores, Vibrocores, Gravity Cores, Grab samples, etc. There are about 12 000m of core and 15 000 seabed samples. Core positions are available on the Eu-Seased Web Site.
     
  • Nirex samples arriving at the Keyworth Core StoreNirex Geological Archive. The Nirex geological archive was transferred from Nirex to the British Geological Survey (BGS) during 2000/2001. The archive consists of borehole cores and samples, thin and polished sections, digital data and paper records acquired by Nirex during its investigations at Sellafield and Dounreay.
     
  • Offshore hydrocarbon well samples. BGS manages the national collection of hydrocarbon well samples at its Gilmerton store, Edinburgh. The collection consists of core and cuttings for all wells drilled for hydrocarbon exploration in UK waters. Searching and arranging examination and sampling of this resource can be arranged via the DEAL website.
     

Borehole data and our scanning activities - has your organisation donated information to the British Geological Survey?

Specimens are available for study at either Keyworth or Edinburgh and a loan system is available to accredited scientists.

Enquiries about the collection of onshore core and other samples

Mr Chris Wheatley
Telephone: 0115 936 3308
Fax: 0115 936 3276

Enquiries about the collection of offshore core and other samples

Mr Graham Tulloch
Telephone:0131 672 9271
Switchboard:0131 664 7330
Fax:0131 664 8394

Enquiries about the hydrogeology collection

E-mail: Enquiries@bgs.ac.uk
Telephone: 01491 838800
Fax: 01491 692345

Contact Collections

Chief Curator
British Geological Survey
Keyworth
Nottingham
NG12 5GG
E-mail: Dr Mike Howe
Telephone: 0115 936 3105
Fax: 0115 936 3276