Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 104 successfully completed a number of deep drill holes on the Outer V0ring Plateau and the Vering Basin during July and August 1985 (Fig. 1; Eldholm, Thiede, Taylor et al. 1986). One of the principal objectives of the leg was to drill and sample a thick oceanward-dipping wedge of seismic reflectors, known to characterize much of the multichannel seismic (MCS) profile data recorded across ocean-continent transitions in the NE Atlantic north of 55°N. Elsewhere, these reflectors have previously been the target of deep drilling during Legs 48 and 81 of the International Phase of Ocean Drilling IPOD (Montadert, Roberts et al. 1979; Roberts, Schnitker et al. 1984). These efforts met with some success, sampling only the uppermost part of the sequence and identifying a series of tholeiitic lava flows. Over the Outer V~ring Plateau, a number of MCS profiles reveal a distinct change in seismic character at the base of the well-stratified dipping reflector sequence, where an irregular surface characterized by a band of low-frequency, high-amplitude reflectors occurs. This surface is referred to as K. Prior to Leg 104, therefore, relatively little was known regarding the variation in petrographic character of the flows at depth, their evolution and origin, and particularly the character of the material below the reflector sequence. A single deep drillhole (642E) successfully recovered a section through the