DSDP Leg 337 was planned as an attemp at deep penetration of the igneous section of the oceanic crust on the western flank of the FAMOUS (Franco- American Mid-Ocean Undersea Study) area of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 36°N. Site 332 is located in Deep Drill Valley approximately 30 km west of the axis of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 36°52'N latitude. The principal goal at this site was deep penetration into layer 2 of the ocean crust by multiple re-entry. Site 334 was drilled on a steep east-facing slope in a small, deep basin near the middle of magnetic anomaly 5. In this area, breccias with gabbro and peridotite clasts in a nannofossil-foram ooze matrix are interlayered with the plutonic rocks and may reflect exposure of a melange in or near the Median Valley of the Mid- Atlantic Ridge prior to burial by later basaltic extrusions.

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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