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METEOR cruise M49/1 lasted from 04.01.2001 - 10.02.2001. The cruise started in Cape Town (South Africa) and ended in Montevideo (Uruguay). The aim of METEOR Cruise M49/1 was to support the proposal 'Early Cenozoic Extreme Climates - The Walvis Ridge Transect' for scientific drilling by the Ocean Drilling program. The main objectives of the ODP proposal are extreme climatic conditions in the Paleogene, dating utilizing astronomical cycles, and the reconstruction of the paleocanographic development. Poor recovery and drilling disturbances made previous drilling campaigns in the area (Leg 40, 1974; Leg 74, 1980) an only limited success, but the sediments recovered during these 1egs document the high quality of sediment cores and paleoceanographic records obtainable in the area. Primary targets of the new drilling proposa1 are the Latest Paleocene Thermal Maximum (55.5 Ma), the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (51 Ma), and the Earliest Oligocene Glacial Maximum (33.4 Ma). 205

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METEOR Cruise 23 was projected to take samples fram the water column and the sea floor as well as to record the sediment structures using geoacoustic methods. The results will be integrated within the long-term special research project Sonderforschungsbereich 261, which aims at the reconstruction of mass budgets and current systems in the South Atlantic for late Quaternary times. Micropaleontological, geochemical, sedimentological, geophysical and isotopic characteristics of the sampled materials are determined both on board and subsequent to the cruise in the laboratories at Bremen University.During the first leg of METEOR Cruise No. 23 a transect through the Southern South Atlantic Ocean was performed at latitudes of 29°S to 37°S between South Africa and South America. The marine geologic, geochemical and geophysical studies were carried out on surface and cored sediment material collected at the South African Continental Margin, in the Cape Basin, on the Southern Walvis Ridge emd aerass the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Continuous sediment and bathymetric echosounder data were recorded along the track to provide information about the structural and tectonie framework of the study areas. Figure 1 shows the ship's track and the 22 geologic, biologic and oceanographic sampling stations visited during METEOR Cruise M23/1. 42

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