Site 172 was continuously cored to a depth of 24 meters in a sediment pond 140 kilometers south of the Murray fracture zone. The upper 9 meters consist of a moderate brown pelagic clay which changes to a zeolite-rich brown clay, brown clay zeolitite and zeolitite in the lower 9 to 24 meters. An Early Oligocene (35 to 38 my) nannofossil horizon occurs near an extrusive basalt encountered at 24 meters. These sediments are older than the 29 my age indicated by a recent identification of magnetic anomaly 8 in the "disturbed" zone. The age discrepancy suggests that the magnetic anomalies in the "disturbed" zone are still not identified correctly.

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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.

Supplement to: Kulm, LaVerne D; von Huene, Roland; Duncan, John R; Ingle, James C; Kling, S A; Musich, L F; Piper, David J W; Pratt, Richard M; Schrader, Hans-Jürgen; Weser, Oscar E; Wise, Sherwood W (1973): Site 172. In: Kulm, L.D.; von Huene, R.; et al., Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project, Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project, U.S. Government Printing Office, XVIII, 15-30