Borehole core collections

Collection of continuous borehole core, broken core, cuttings, etc. are held at Keyworth. The hydrogeological materials collection, which includes core and borehole material, is housed at Wallingford.


  • Photograph of the Keyworth Core Store Onshore borehole material database (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.
  • UKCS (offshore) hydrocarbon well samples. BGS manages the national collection of hydrocarbon well samples. The collection consists of core and cuttings for all wells drilled for hydrocarbon exploration in UK waters was transferred from the Gilmerton store, Edinburgh to Keyworth during 2011 – 12.
  • 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 Geo-Seas website.
  • 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.

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

Download the borehole material regulations and booking form.

Enquiries about the collection of onshore core and other samples

Mr Scott Renshaw
Telephone: 0115 936 3228 or 3413
Fax: 0115 936 3276

Enquiries about the collection of offshore core and other samples

Mr Graham Tulloch
Telephone:0131 650 0365
Switchboard:0131 667 1000
Fax:0131 667 4140

Enquiries about the hydrogeology collection

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