The original objective of this leg was to drill a deep hole (planned as ENA-3D) through sediments at the foot of the Atlantic continental rise off the coast of Eastern United States and to sample Jurassic basement. It was hoped that one reentry hole would obtain a complete sedimentary record dating from the initial opening of the North Atlantic to the present, showing the development and sedimentation processes of the North American Basin.

From 1983 until 1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions. At the time it was the most extended data compilation on ferromanganese deposits world wide. Initially published in a proprietary format incompatible with present day standards it was jointly decided by AWI and NOAA to transcribe this legacy data into PANGAEA. This transfer is augmented by a careful checking of the original sources when available and the encoding of ancillary information (sample description, method of analysis...) not present in the NOAA-MMS database.