We acknowledge warmly the members of the ODP panels and particularly leg "watchdog" Larry Petersen, who in the early 1990s nurtured Drilling Proposal 441 to the point that it became Leg 181. We thank also the ship's crew, drilling crew, and technical and scientific members of the party aboard JOIDES Resolution who worked so hard and expertly, often in trying and dangerous conditions, to make the cruise a success. Faced as we were with the task of summarizing the science results of the cruise, we thank our scientific colleagues for making their results so readily available to us and especially those who allowed us the privilege of reading and citing work that is still in the final stages of preparation for publication. We also thank the ODP-TAMU (Texas A&M University) editorial team, and especially Lorri Peters and Gigi Delgado for their patient help and support, and Dr. Detlef Warnke for his constructive criticisms of the draft manuscript. In addition to the shipboard science party, a number of shore-based scientists made a very significant contribution to the results of the cruise, and we thank Drs. Martin Crundwell, Ian Graham, Chris Hollis, Dallas Mildenhall, George Scott (all New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences; IGNS), and Helen Neill (National Institute of Water and Atmosphere; NIWA) in this regard, and also Rupert Sutherland (IGNS) for providing the base-maps for Figure F23 and Philip Maxwell for advice on Paleocene mollusks. We thank IGNS and NIWA management for supporting the participation of their research staff and for contributing to the cost of the color plates for this volume. We are grateful also for the major support given by NIWA by their underwriting of several research cruises, including site surveys, through which Leg 181 became possible. This research used samples and data provided by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). The ODP is sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and participating countries under management of Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), Inc. Financial support for participation in the cruise and for the research undertaken by the three authors was provided by the Australian Research Council (Grant A-39805139; R.M. Carter), the National Environment Research Council (McCave), and NIWA (L. Carter), for which we express our appreciation.