Sulfate measurements were performed onboard the ship using a Sykam solvent delivery system coupled to a Waters 430 conductivity detector at a 1:50 dilution. Daily standard calibrations using seawater provided by the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) were performed. The range for the 5-point standard calibration was 10 µM - 400 µM.For methane, a 3 cm**3 sediment sample was transferred into a 20 mL He flushed headspace vial, filled with 10 mL of a 5 M NaCl solution. All samples were taken immediately after the gravity core was retrieved and cut into 1-m segments. Methane concentrations were measured at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology with a Hewlett Packard 5890A gas chromatograph using a splitless injector, a stainless steel Porapak-Q column and a flame ionization detector. Chromatographic response on the GC instrument was calibrated against three different standards with variable concentrations of methane. Methane concentrations were corrected for sediment porosity.