A workflow for sampling hard rock cores for microbiological research was developed and optimized during International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 399. These procedures and protocols were adapted from previous expeditions and further optimized for handling large numbers of hard rock samples. The workflow is also intended to facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations so as to maximize the scientific value of each sample for the whole scientific team.

The Geological Research through Integrated Neoproterozoic Drilling project investigates rocks from the late Ediacaran Period, just before the rise of complex life. Its first stage studies rocks in Namibia and Brazil that contain some of Earth's earliest animal fossils. These cores help reveal environmental shifts that shaped early life and show how early animals developed.

The research focuses on overdeepenings in the former Rhine glacier domain north from Lake Constance in southwestern Germany. We expand the current knowledge of the Quaternary stratigraphy of the Lake Constance Amphitheatre by revealing two new drill cores, both reaching the quaternary base of two different overdeepened basins. As a result, we show that our investigated sediment successions are quite atypical for alpine foreland overdeepenings.

As part of a geothermal project in Delft, the Netherlands, a 500 m deep multifunctional research borehole and monitoring station (called DAPGEO-02) was drilled in spring 2022. Cores and other solid samples were taken using a comprehensive logging programme using tools lowered into the borehole, and sensitive instruments were installed to measure any minor seismicity. The data from this borehole are publicly available, and physical sample requests can be made to promote scientific discovery.

Development of user applications and databases for geological core descriptions on the JOIDES Resolution (1985–2024) culminated in the GEODESC (GEOlogical DESCription) toolset in 2022. GEODESC integrates spreadsheet-based data capture with catalogs of geological vocabulary and template management and is supported by a relational database. Running on all major browsers, GEODESC user web applications enable true collaboration among scientists working at different times and locations.

The Lake KINneret Drilling project investigates the environmental history of the Levant, with plans to extract a continuous, high-resolution deep sediment core from beneath Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) spanning the Pliocene–Quaternary. The aim is to understand how past global climate cycles influenced the regional hydroclimate,  environment, and early human migrations out of Africa and to reconstruct the earthquake history of the region