The Scientific Party of Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 201 is deeply grateful to the many people and institutions that made this cruise a tremendous success.

Every member of the Leg 201 Shipboard Party worked extraordinarily hard to make the cruise successful. The crew of the JOIDES Resolution, led by Captain Tom Hardy and Drilling Superintendent Wayne Malone, paced the cruise beautifully and recovered uncontaminated sediments from a challenging range of subseafloor environments. The ODP marine technicians, led by Laboratory Officer Roy Davis, dealt effectively and enthusiastically with the tremendous range of core handling, sampling, analytical, and downhole tool operations required by Leg 201.

The operations were carefully planned under the guidance of ODP Operations Manager Mike Storms. They were conducted under the guidance of Mike Storms and Brian Jonasson. Led by Brad Julson, the ODP supervisor of technical support, the ODP technical staff greatly enhanced the microbiology and biogeochemistry laboratories in the months leading up to the cruise.

We thank the JOIDES planning structure, the ODP management at Texas A&M University, and the many institutions that financially and logistically support ODP. The Life In Extreme Environments Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation provided shipboard microbiology instrumentation. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Astrobiology Institute (NAI) supported precruise development of shipboard biogeochemical techniques. The U.S. Department of Energy supported geotechnical instrumentation. The DeepBug project and the European Science Foundation (ESF) supported precruise development of microbiological subsampling tools and procedures. The NAI and the ESF provided financial support for precruise planning meetings. The governments of Ecuador and Peru approved Leg 201 drilling in their territorial waters.

Finally, we thank the ODP Publication Services staff for their invaluable guidance and support in completing this volume.