This research used samples and/or data provided by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). ODP is sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and participating countries under management of Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), Inc. Funding for this research was provided by CNR funds to I. Premoli (University of Milano) and to E. Andri and L. Cortesogno (University of Genova). The authors wish to thank L. Negretti for help in mineral data acquisition, T. Cucchiara for XRD analyses, and R. Rubiera for calcimetries.