Headspace gas samples from the serpentinite and serpentinite breccia contain as much as 6000 ppm methane and 1.2 ppm ethane, with no other detectable hydrocarbons. Such anomalously high methane values are probably a result of the process of serpentinization. This foliation is overprinted by fractures filled with serpentine and chlorite. The physical properties of the sediments vary on a small scale according to lithology within the repetitive sequence of calcareous sandstone, calcareous claystone, and claystone. The sandstones are the most dense, least porous, and have the highest velocities.
Claystones are at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Shipboard paleomagnetic results indicate a number of magnetic reversals between 711.3 and 855.9 mbsf. The combined biostratigraphic and paleomagnetic data indicate that these polarity zones span Chrons C29r to C21n. Wholecore magnetic susceptibility and intensity measurements and discrete samples reveal sharp peaks in brown claystone from 778.9 to 788.5 mbsf. This characteristic brown bed and the associated peaks in NRM intensity and volume susceptibility were also observed at nearby Sites 1067 and 900 and appear to provide a stratigraphic marker within the sediments of the Iberia Abyssal Plain. The bed may represent an abrupt change in the rate of supply of terrigenous material in the early Eocene.