MexiDrill, the Basin of Mexico Drilling Program, recovered a continuous, high-resolution 400 000 year record of tropical North American environmental change. The field location, in the densely populated, water-stressed, Mexico City region, gives this record particular societal relevance. The record also contains a rich record of volcanic activity; knowledge of the history of the area's explosive volcanic eruptions will improve capacity for risk assessment of future activity.

The Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE) was cored at Colle di Sogno and Gajum in the Lombardy Basin (northern Italy), where pelagic successions guarantee a continuous record of this paleoenvironmental perturbation. The Sogno and Gajum cores recovered high-quality sediments deposited prior to, during, and after the T-OAE. Ongoing research is devoted to reconstructing the marine ecosystem dynamics and resilience under short- and long-term perturbations analogous to current global changes.

A MagellanPlus workshop was held in Naples, Italy (25–28 February 2017), to explore the potential of the Campi Flegrei caldera as a target for an Amphibious Drilling Proposal to be submitted to international drilling programs. Campi Flegrei is an ideal natural laboratory to analyze the mechanisms of caldera dynamics and the relationships between hydrothermal and magmatic processes. The results will significantly advance our understanding of the most complex forms of volcanic structures on Earth.

The architecture, formation, and modification of oceanic plates are fundamental to our of understanding key geologic processes of the Earth. Geophysical surveys were conducted around a site near the Hawaiian Islands (northeastern Hawaiian North Arch region). This workshop report describes scientific targets for 2 km deep ocean drilling in the Hawaiian North Arch region in order to provide information about the lower crust from unrecovered age and spreading rate gaps in previous ocean drillings.

This paper summarizes a workshop held in Parker, AZ, USA, to discuss planned scientific drilling in the Miocene(?) or early Pliocene Bouse Formation, a controversial deposit (of lacustrine, marine, or some hybrid origin) found in the lower Colorado River valley. The drilling project is intended to address this controversy as well as shed light on Pliocene climates of southwestern North America during an important period of past climate change.

The northeast Atlantic encompasses archetypal examples of volcanic rifted margins. Twenty-five years after the last ODP leg on these volcanic margins, the reasons for excess melting are still disputed with at least three competing hypotheses being discussed. We are proposing a new drilling campaign that will constrain the timing, rates of volcanism, and vertical movements of rifted margins.