There is a great deal of uncertainty as to the levels of stability of slope components of the European margin, other than localised detailed surveys completed using a combination of side-scan sonar and swathe bathymetry in recent years. These surveys have revealed that the factors which control the locations of areas of potential slope failure are complex and manifold. Clearly slope gradients, sediment supply, physical oceanographic conditions and sediment type all have major roles to play, but their interaction is far from well understood. One of the problems to be addressed is the lack of a comprehensive and focussed data synthesis with which to derive and test models of slope behaviour. A promising way in which this shortfall could be rectified would be to combine selected parts of the extensive survey database acquired by the telecommunications industry in its search for suitable pathways in which to lay earlier copper-core and now, more recently, fibre-optic cable systems. These data would be interpreted in conjunction with a rigorous analysis of the industry's historical cable-fault database which provides parameters of naturally occuring cable failures (through sediment failure, for example). Together these data will provide an understanding of the geological characteristics of key parts of the European shelf, underpinned with the statistics of active slope processes over the most recent decades. The benefits of such a synthesis to both the telecommunications and hydrocarbon industries cannot be overstated.

The thermal state of marine sediments controls a range of potential dehydration reactions as sediments are subducted. In thick sediment sections it is possible that reactions that would normally occur within a subduction zone start offshore of the deformation front. This scenario may be occurring at the Sumatra subduction zone (e.g. Geersen et al., 2013; Huepers et al., 2017). We have investigated this possibility by modelling the thermal and depth history of sediments offshore Sumatra. We have used a range of different assumptions about how the sediments decompact with depth, as well as testing the dependence on the seismic velocities used for depth conversion of the horizons.

Deposition in many Ocean Margin settings involves settling of non-cohesive grains ('sand') through a non-Newtonian suspension of colloidal ('mud') particles. Although sand or mud-only settling is well constrained, combined sand-mud settling is poorly understood. Complex particle interactions ensure sand-mud settling is not simply the addition of individual sand and mud settling behaviour. Novel experiments will develop a better understanding of sand-mud settling dynamics in the context of submarine turbidity currents, in order to predict lateral variations in mud-content and reservoir quality of their deposits (turbidites). Many of the World's largest petroleum reservoirs occur within turbidites. Results will also aid prediction of pollutant flux to the sea-floor in diverse marine settings, as pollutants are preferentially incorporated onto mud particles.

This dataset comprises 40Ar/39Ar dated detrital hornblende grains for 5 samples from IODP Expedition 374 Site U1521 to the Ross Sea, collected on the RV JOIDES Resolution. Shipboard biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy suggests the samples are early Miocene in age (McKay et al., 2019, Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery Program). These data can be compared to terrestrial geochronological data, allowing the changing provenance of the sediments to be traced.

This dataset comprises neodymium (Nd) and strontium (Sr) isotope compositions measured on 72 sediment samples, from IODP Expedition 374 Site U1521 to the Ross Sea. These were collected on the RV JOIDES Resolution. Shipboard biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy suggests the samples are mainly early Miocene in age (McKay et al., 2019). The uppermost samples do, however, include younger Plio-Pleistocene sediments. Neodymium and Sr isotope analyses were conducted using a multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) and a thermal ionisation mass spectrometer (TIMS), respectively, in the MAGIC laboratories at Imperial College London. Neodymium and Sr isotopes in sediments can be compared to measurements from terrestrial rock samples, allowing the changing provenance of the sediments to be traced. This dataset therefore provides information on how erosion by Antarctica’s ice sheets bordering the Ross Sea has changed over time. Neodymium isotopes are reported in the epsilon notation, which denotes the deviation in parts per 10,000 from the present-day composition of the Chondritic Uniform Reservoir (143Nd/144Nd = 0.512638) (Jacobsen and Wasserburg, 1980).

This dataset comprises 35 samples analysed for clay mineralogy from IODP Expedition 374 Site U1521 to the Ross Sea, collected on the RV JOIDES Resolution. Shipboard biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy suggests the samples are mainly early Miocene in age (McKay et al., 2019, Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery Program). The uppermost samples do, however, include younger Plio-Pleistocene sediments.