ALTERNATE DRILLING STRATEGY
If the coring strategy to recover soft-hard interlayers outlined above proves ineffective in providing sufficient recovery at the first site (Site SHAT-5C), we propose an alternate strategy to concentrate on the uppermost Cretaceous (post-Santonian) and Paleogene section in which chert is rare. To achieve this, we have assembled eight primary sites in this alternate strategy that provide a depth transect of ~2500 m and a latitudinal transect of 8° (Fig. 9, Fig. 10; Table 1, Table 2). The alternate strategy, although forfeiting the mid-Cretaceous objectives, would yield a highly detailed depth transect of the Late Cretaceous through Paleogene Pacific Ocean, allowing us to address in far more detail the major scientific objectives in this time interval. In addition to the alternate strategy sites listed in Table 2, six more alternate sites (SHAT-6, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13; Fig. 9) have been approved for drilling, but are lower priority.