The Demerara Rise is a prominent submarine plateau located at ~5°N off the coasts of Surinam and French Guyana (see Fig. F1 in the "Leg 207 Summary" chapter). This feature is built on rifted continental crust that subsided as Africa and South America separated during Early Cretaceous time. Seismic stratigraphy reveals that its sediments thin from south to north. The five Leg 207 sites were drilled on the northern edge of the Demerara Rise to recover as much of the Cretaceous section as possible (see Fig. F2 in the "Leg 207 Summary" chapter). The sites consequently share very similar passive-margin depositional environments that differ principally in their depths below sea level but also in some features of the five lithostratigraphic units that were found at all five sites (see Fig. F8 in the "Leg 207 Summary" chapter).