Site 1165 is located in 3537 m of water on the continental rise offshore from Prydz Bay over sediments of the central Wild Drift (fig. F3 in Shipboard Scientific Party, 2001). The drift is an elongate sediment body formed by the interaction of sediment supplied from the shelf and westward-flowing currents on the continental rise of Antarctica. The main objective at Site 1165 was to obtain a proximal continental rise record of Antarctic glacial and interglacial periods for comparison with other sites around Antarctica and with those of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets.
Site 1166 is situated on the Prydz Bay continental shelf of Antarctica. Prydz Bay is at the downstream end of a drainage system that originates in the Gamburtsev Mountains of central East Antarctica. The early development and growth of the Cenozoic Antarctic Ice Sheet is believed to have started in middle Eocene to early Oligocene time, but to date, drilling on the continent and the continental margin has not sampled a stratigraphic section that clearly spans and includes the transition period from preglacial to glacial conditions. Site 1166 was chosen to recover core from the Cenozoic sediments and to provide an age for the arrival of glaciers in Prydz Bay and a record of changes in paleoenvironments and biota with the onset of glaciation.