Two platform to slope transects were drilled across the Miocene carbonate platforms of the Marion Plateau during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 194. Seismic, lithologic, logging, and biostratigraphic data reveal that platform architecture was controlled by factors including sea level change, bottom currents, and biological assemblages (Isern, Anselmetti, Blum, et al., 2002). Pore water geochemical profiles through Leg 194 sediments provide evidence of present-day seawater circulation through the carbonate platforms and proximal slope sediments (Isern et al., 2002). Extensive dolomitization within both platforms also indicates past fluid circulation, as required to deliver the magnesium necessary for conversion of the precursor calcium carbonate sediments. Indeed, the lithification and development of the present seismic properties of the Marion Plateau strata must to a large degree reflect the history of pore water flow attending and following burial below the sediment/water interface.
Research on the above themes should benefit from availability of the comprehensive data set of porosity and permeability measurements provided in this report. These data include both the Northern and Southern Marion Platforms and their slopes. As far as we are aware, such a data set is unique in the history of ODP and the Deep Sea Drilling Program, where issues related to "reservoir quality," traditionally the domain of the petroleum industry, have not previously been prioritized. Because of the broad interest of carbonate platform research for both academic and applied science, however, the present porosity-permeability data set is expected to have similarly broad significance and value.