The purpose of this volume, the ninth in a series of similar publications (Goodell, 1964, 1965, 1968; Frakes 1971, 1973 ; Cassidy et al., 1977), is to continue a presentation to the research community of sediment core descriptions and attendant data of cored and otherwise obtained sediments retrieved in waters of the Southern Ocean aboard the research vessel, ARA Islas Orcadas (formerly, USNS Eltanin), as a part of the circumpolar survey begun by Eltanin in 1962 (see issue of Antarctic Journal of the United States, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1973). The data presented herein are concerned with the results of coring activities aboard cruise 1277 of Islas Orcadas, the third marine geology coring cruise of this vessel under the terms of the present United States-Argentine agreement. The core descriptions are organised as follows: 1) a brief summary of the coring objectives of the cruise, together with a discussion of core recovery; 2) a table and map of station location data for materials retrieved; 3) a table of tentative age-dates for each piston core; 4) an explanation of the laboratory procedures and descriptive criteria used in the description of the sediments, and 5) lithologic descriptions of the piston and trigger cores, and the piston and trigger core bag samples