Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is the United Kingdom's leading body for research, survey, monitoring and training in the environmental sciences. NERC sponsors research and postgraduate training and has a network of research centres and surveys across the UK. NERC gives advice both on exploiting natural resources and on protecting the environment to government departments and businesses. NERC funds marine scientific infrastructure in the UK. For more information on the work of NERC please visit http://www.nerc.ac.uk British Ocean Sediment Core Repository (BOSCOR) BOSCOR is the UK national deep-sea core repository, set up by the Natural Environment Research Council (UK), to store marine sediment cores collected by NERC ships and NERC-funded researchers. BOSCOR provides specialised facilities for the long-term storage and curation of cores with the aim of making the material available to scientists and to promote secondary usage amongst the scientific community. BOSCOR is located at the Southampton Oceanography Centre, Southampton, U.K. For more information on BOSCOR please visit http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/CHD/BOSCOR