Stress history results derived from one-dimensional incremental load consolidation tests on sediments from ODP Leg 207 are used to constrain the timing and magnitude of erosional events on Demerara Rise. These results indicate that significant sediment accumulation and subsequent erosion occurred in the late Miocene, following a prolonged period of dynamic deposition and erosion that existed between the early Oligocene and middle Miocene. OCRs tend to decrease downhole, indicating that elevated pore pressures exist in the vicinity of Cretaceous black shale deposits. The magnitude of the excess pore pressure varies across the rise, potentially increasing away from regions where the black shales outcrop on the steep margin flanks. Permeability profiles document a sharp decrease across the Maastrichtian–Paleocene chalks and clays that overly the black shales. These low permeability sediments may act as a hydraulic seal, providing a mechanism for generating excess pore pressures in Cretaceous sediments. Together with lateral variations in overburden, the permeability profiles provide the architecture for a significant two-dimensional flow regime, with the black shales acting as a laterally continuous permeable conduit. This flow regime may be able to explain anomalous pore water profiles observed in the black shales.