Two months at sea on the Joides Resolution and over 2 km of seafloor core from the southern South Africa sheds light on regional climate history

This presentation gives an account of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) expedition 392 [Agulhas Plateau Cretaceous Climate: drilling the Agulhas Plateau and Transkei Basin to reconstruct the Cretaceous–Paleogene tectonic and climatic evolution of the Southern Ocean basin] which took place from February to April 2022. Four geological sites were drilled on the seafloor of the Agulhas Plateau and the Transkei Basin (Figure 1). A total of 28 scientists from sailed on the Joides Resolution vessel and the deepest hole drilled of four reached 994 m below the seafloor, in over 4500 m of water. The overarching objectives of Expedition 392’s recovery of rocks and sedimentary sequences were aimed at: (1) determining the nature and origin of the Agulhas Plateau; (2) advancing the understanding of how Cretaceous temperatures, ocean circulation, and sedimentation patterns evolved as CO2 levels rose and fell and the breakup of Gondwana progressed; (3) documenting long-term palaeoceanographic variability through the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene; and (4) investigating geochemical interactions between igneous rocks, sediments, and pore waters through the life cycle of a large igneous province