Drilling in the western wall of the MARK area

Leg 153 is scheduled to drill rocks believed to be representative of the lower crust and upper mantle created at a slow-spreading ridge. Two sites have been selected in the MARK area (Mid-Atlantic Ridge near the Kane Transform) to achieve deep penetration into: 1) a gabbro massif, and 2) a serpentinized peridotite section along strike to the south of the gabbroic massif. Both proposed sites are along the western rift-valley wall; gabbros and serpentinized peridotites are located 10 and 35 km south of the transform, respectively. Studies at these proposed sites will address a variety of tectonic, petrological, hydrothermal, and geophysical problems that are contingent upon the penetration of long continuous cores in deep crustal to upper mantle rocks in slow-spreading lithosphere. -from Authors