Description: Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 320/321, "Pacific Equatorial Age Transect" (Sites U1331–U1338), was designed to recover a continuous Cenozoic record of the equatorial Pacific by coring above the paleoposition of the Equator at successive crustal ages on the Pacific plate. These sediments record the evolution of the equatorial climate system throughout the Cenozoic. As we gained more information about the past movement of plates and when in Earth's history "critical" climate events took place, it became possible to drill an age transect ("flow-line") along the position of the paleoequator in the Pacific, targeting important time slices where the sedimentary archive allows us to reconstruct past climatic and tectonic conditions. The Pacific Equatorial Age Transect (PEAT) program cored eight sites from the sediment surface to basement, with basalt aged between 53 and 18 Ma, covering the time period following maximum Cenozoic warmth, through initial major glaciations, to today. The PEAT program allows the reconstruction of extreme changes of the calcium carbonate compensation depth (CCD) across major geological boundaries during the last 53 m.y. A very shallow CCD during most of the Paleogene makes it difficult to obtain well-preserved carbonate sediments during these stratigraphic intervals, but Expedition 320 recovered a unique sedimentary biogenic sediment archive for time periods just after the Paleocene/Eocene boundary event, the Eocene cooling, the Eocene–Oligocene transition, the "one cold pole" Oligocene, the Oligocene–Miocene transition, and the middle Miocene cooling. Expedition 321, the second part of the PEAT program, recovered sediments from the time period roughly from 25 Ma forward, including sediments crossing the Oligocene/Miocene boundary and two major Neogene equatorial Pacific sediment sections. Together with older Deep Sea Drilling Project and Ocean Drilling Program drilling in the equatorial Pacific, we can delineate the position of the paleoequator and variations in sediment thickness from ~150°W to 110°W longitude.

Description: The tight program of scientific research cruises usually does not leave enough time for thorough tests of new research equipment and their system components, nor for extensive pilot and handling training. For this reason, ship time was requested for sea trials of two types of autonomous (not tethered) underwater vehicles owned by GEOMAR, the manned 400-meter submersible JAGO and the Hover-AUVs ANTON and LUISE, type Girona500. The aim was to test several technical and operational aspects with both vehicles at locations with differently structured terrain (from flat ground to steep rocky slopes) and to water depths of up to 500 meters. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily were chosen as test area. The volcanic islands offer sheltered sea conditions at their leeway, and bottom currents are usually weak or absent. Rocky and steep slopes are located in short distances to areas with flat underwater topography, providing ideal test conditions.