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The tectonic and paleoceanographic setting of the Great Australian Bight (GAB) and the Mentelle Basin (adjacent to Naturaliste Plateau) offered an opportunity to investigate Cretaceous and Cenozoic climate change and ocean dynamics during the last phase of breakup among remnant Gondwana continents. Sediment recovered from sites in both regions during International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 369 will provide a new perspective on Earth's temperature variation at subpolar latitudes (60°-62°S) across the extremes of the mid-Cretaceous hot greenhouse climate and the cooling that followed. Basalts and prebreakup sediments were also recovered and will provide constraints regarding the type and age of the Mentelle Basin basement and processes operating during the break up of Gondwana. The primary goals of the expedition were to • Investigate the timing and causes for the rise and collapse of the Cretaceous hot greenhouse climate and how this climate mode affected the climate-ocean system and oceanic biota; • Determine the relative roles of productivity, ocean temperature, and ocean circulation at high southern latitudes during Cretaceous oceanic anoxic events (OAEs); • Investigate potential source regions for deep-water and intermediate-water masses in the southeast Indian Ocean and how these changed during Gondwana breakup; • Characterize how oceanographic conditions at the Mentelle Basin changed during the Cenozoic opening of the Tasman Gateway and restriction of the Indonesian Gateway; and • Resolve questions on the volcanic and sedimentary origins of the Australo-Antarctic Gulf and Mentelle Basin and provide stratigraphic control on the age and nature of the prebreakup successions. Hole U1512A in the GAB recovered a 691 m thick sequence of black claystone ranging from the lower Turonian to the lower Campanian. Age control is primarily based on calcareous nannofossils, but the presence of other microfossil groups provided consistent low-resolution control. Despite the lithologic uniformity, long- and short-term variations in natural gamma radiation and magnetic susceptibility show cyclic alternations that suggest an orbital control of sediment deposition, which will be useful for developing an astrochronology for the sequence. Sites U1513, U1514, U1515, and U1516 were drilled in water depths between 850 and 3900 m in the Mentelle Basin and penetrated 774, 517, 517, and 542 meters below seafloor, respectively. Under a thin layer of Pleistocene to upper Miocene sediment, Site U1513 cored a succession of Cretaceous units from the Campanian to the Valanginian, as well as a succession of basalts. Site U1514 sampled an expanded Pleistocene to Eocene sequence and terminated in the upper Albian. The Cenomanian to Turonian interval at Site U1514 is represented by deformed sedimentary rocks that probably represent a detachment zone. Site U1515 is located on the west Australian margin at 850 m water depth and was the most challenging site to core because much of the upper 350 m was either chert or poorly consolidated sand. However, the prebreakup Jurassic(?) sediments interpreted from the seismic profiles were successfully recovered. Site U1516 cored an expanded Pleistocene, Neogene, and Paleogene section and recovered a complete Cenomanian/Turonian boundary interval containing five layers with high organic carbon content. Study of the well-preserved calcareous microfossil assemblages from different paleodepths will enable generation of paleotemperature and biotic records that span the rise and collapse of the Cretaceous hot greenhouse (including OAEs 1d and 2), providing insight to resultant changes in deep-water and surface water circulation that can be used to test predictions from earth system models. Measurements of paleotemperature proxies and other data will reveal the timing, magnitude, and duration of peak hothouse conditions and any cold snaps that could have allowed growth of a polar ice sheet. The sites contain a record of the mid-Eocene to early Oligocene opening of the Tasman Gateway and the Miocene to Pliocene restriction of the Indonesian Gateway; both passages have important effects on global oceanography and climate. Advancing understanding of the paleoceanographic changes in a regional context will provide a global test on models of Cenomanian to Turonian oceanographic and climatic evolution related both to extreme Turonian warmth and the evolution of OAE 2. The Early Cretaceous volcanic rocks and underlying Jurassic(?) sediments cored in different parts of the Mentelle Basin provide information on the timing of different stages of the Gondwana breakup. The recovered cores provide sufficient new age constraints to underpin a reevaluation of the basin-wide seismic stratigraphy and tectonic models for the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]