Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 183 Sites 1135, 1136, and 1138 are located on the Kerguelen Plateau (KP) in the southern Indian Ocean (Fig. F1). This feature, ~2500 km long and between 200 and 600 km wide, rises ~2-4 km above the surrounding abyssal plain. The present-day latitude of the plateau ranges from 46° to 64°S latitude with corresponding paleolatitudes of ~50° to 65°S at 63.6 Ma (Fig. F2). The main objectives of this leg were to study the emplacement and subsequent tectonic and paleoenvironmental history of this large igneous province (Shipboard Scientific Party, 2000a).
The KP began to form during the mid-Cretaceous as a subaerial volcanic edifice. It has since persisted as a major middepth oceanic topographic high. Following subsidence (Coffin, 1992), most of it remained above the calcite compensation depth until about Pliocene time. This has resulted in a record of environmental, oceanographic, and biotic changes from the Cretaceous to the Holocene along an 18° latitudinal transect across the Southern Ocean.
This paper examines the Paleocene-Eocene nannofossil biostratigraphy and some associated paleoceanographic events recorded in the stable isotope records at Sites 1135, 1136, and 1138 (Fig F1). Calcareous nannofossils are abundant to very abundant and, in general, moderately well preserved in all samples examined from all three sites. Preservation and individual nannofossil species abundance are recorded in Tables T1, T2, T3, and T4. All species considered in this report are listed in the "Appendix" and bibliographic references for most taxa are given in Perch-Nielsen (1985). Any taxa not cited therein are given in the references.