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Introduction 3 Background 6 Scientific objectives 8 Operations and coring strategy 17 Site summaries 45 Preliminary scientific assessment 47 References

The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a global warming event of 5–6 °C around 56 million years ago caused by input of carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. Hydrothermal venting of greenhouse gases produced in contact aureoles surrounding magmatic intrusions in the North Atlantic Igneous Province have been proposed to play a key role in the PETM carbon-cycle perturbation, but the precise timing, magnitude and climatic impact of such venting remains uncertain. Here we present seismic data and the results of a five-borehole transect sampling the crater of a hydrothermal vent complex in the Northeast Atlantic. Stable carbon isotope stratigraphy and dinoflagellate cyst biostratigraphy reveal a negative carbon isotope excursion coincident with the appearance of the index taxon Apectodinium augustum in the vent crater, firmly tying the infill to the PETM. The shape of the crater and stratified sediments suggests large-scale explosive gas release during the initial phase of vent formation followed by rapid, but largely undisturbed, diatomite-rich infill. Moreover, we show that these vents erupted in very shallow water across the North Atlantic Igneous Province, such that volatile emissions would have entered the atmosphere almost directly without oxidation to CO2 and at the onset of the PETM.

We have investigated the crustal structure of a 400 km wide zone of thinned continental crust in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) using gravity and magnetic modeling along two deeply penetrated seismic transects. Using this approach, we identify two zones of prominent, southward-dipping reflectors associated with 7–10 km thick, dense, and highly magnetic material. Previous workers have interpreted the zones as either coarse clastic redbeds of Mesozoic age that are tilted within half-grabens or seaward-dipping reflectors of magmatic origin. Both seismic reflection lines reveal a 10 km thick and 67 km wide northern zone of high density near the Florida coastline beneath the Apalachicola rift (AR). The southern zone of high density occurs 70 km to the south in the deepwater central GOM along the northern flank of the marginal rift, a 48 km wide, southeast-trending structure of inferred Late Jurassic age that is filled by 3 km of low-density and low-magnetic susceptibility sediments including complexly deformed salt deposits. We propose that these two subparallel rifts and their associated magmatic belts formed in the following sequence: (1) AR formed during Triassic-early Jurassic (210–163 Ma) phase 1 of diffuse continental stretching and was partially infilled on its northern edge by southward-dipping volcanic flows; and (2) the similarly southward-dipping southern magmatic zone formed adjacent to the marginal rift during the early phase 2 of late Jurassic (161–153 Ma) rifting of the GOM continental extension; this southern area of SDR formation immediately preceded the formation of the adjacent oceanic crust that separated the rift-related evaporates into the northern and southern GOM. Our integrated approach combining 2D seismic, gravity, and magnetic data sets results in a more confident delineation of these deep crustal features than from seismic data alone.

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