Superfast Spreading Rate Crust 4:Expedition 335 of the riserless drilling platformPuntarenas, Costa Rica, to Balboa, PanamaSite 125613 April–3 June 2011

The Superfast Spreading Crust campaign, echoing long-standing ocean lithosphere community endeavors, was designed to understand the formation, architecture, and evolution of ocean crust formed at fast spreading rates. Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 335, “Superfast Spreading Rate Crust 4” (13 April–3 June 2011), was the fourth scientific drilling cruise of the Superfast Spreading Crust campaign to Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 1256D. The expedition aimed to deepen this basement reference site several hundred meters into the gabbroic rocks of intact lower oceanic crust to address the following fundamental scientific questions: Does the lower crust form by subsidence of a crystal mush from a high-level magma chamber (gabbro glacier), by intrusion of sills throughout the lower crust, or by some other mechanism? How does melt percolate through the lower crust, and what are the reactions and chemical evolution of magmas during migration? Is the plutonic crust cooled by conduction and/or hydrothermal circulation? What are the role and extent of deeply penetrating seawater-derived hydrothermal fluids in cooling the lower crust and the chemical exchanges between the ocean crust and the oceans? What are the relationships among the geological, geochemical, and geophysical structure of the crust and, in particular, the nature of the seismic Layer 2–3 transition?