The Bureau of Economic Geology, serving in its role as the Texas Geological Survey, has maintained a collection of cores and well cuttings since the 1930's.

Three core research centers now store more than 1.7 million items of geologic material, including core, cuttings, outcrop samples, thin sections, and paleontology/palynology and geochemistry samples. These holdings constitute one of the largest public collections of subsurface geologic materials in the United States.