Crossrail cores placed in deep storage

Crossrail is using a natural storage facility at the site of the UK’s largest salt mine to store thousands of soil and rock cores from beneath London.

The cores that are being stored at the DeepStore salt mine in Winsford, Cheshire, were removed as part of the Crossrail tunnelling process, and tell the geological story of the earth on which London sits over a span of 35 million years.

Crossrail Head of Geotechnics Mike Black said: “These soil and rock cores played a crucial role in the Crossrail project as they allowed us to build up a detailed picture of the ground conditions below London. The information gained from them can be used by future London tunnelling projects.”