a pile of volcanic rocks, including stacks of lava flows, each of which is about thick, but there are also breccias, intrusions and sills. The lava flows appear to have been formed years apart from each other. Resolution Guyot was also hydrothermally active. This volcanic activity over 1–2 million years generated a volcanic island. Volcanic activity took place in a tropical or subtropical environment and between eruptions weathering, soil formation and potentially mass wasting generated layers of clay, rock debris and alteration products such as laterite. Erosion eventually flattened the volcanic island to form a platform. It is possible that magmatic intrusions (sills) formed later in the history of Resolution Guyot. Platform carbonates and reefs Between the Hauterivian (ca. 132.9 – ca. 129.4 million years ago) and Albian (ca. 113 – 100.5 million years ago), about of carbonate was deposited on the volcanic structure, eventually completely burying it during the Albian. About 14 individual sequences of carbonates have been identified in drill cores. The carbonate sedimentation probably began in the form of shoals surrounding a volcanic island and lasted for about 35 million years, accompanied by perhaps of subsidence. It is likely that the present-day carbonate platform contains only a fraction of the originally deposited carbonate, most of the carbonate having disappeared. During this time, Resolution Guyot underwent little latitudinal plate motion; from the magnetization it appears that it was stably located at about 13° southern latitude between the Hauterivian and Aptian. Its carbonate platform cannot be reconstructed as only small parts have been studied, but some conclusions can be made. The Resolution platform was surrounded by barrier islands but featured only a few reefs; unlike present-day atolls which were rimmed by reefs Cretaceous platforms were rimmed by sand shoals and on Resolution Guyot drill cores into the rim have only found sediment accumulations and no reefs. Analysis of the carbonate layers has identified that several environments existed on the platform, including swash beaches, lagoons, marshes, mudflats, sabkhas, sand bars and washover fans from storms; at times there were also open-marine conditions. Some environments on Resolution Guyot were hypersaline at times, probably implying that they had only limited water exchange with the surrounding ocean. Islands formed from sand bars, resembling those of the Bahama Banks. Records from Hole 866A indicate that settings at a given site were not stable over longer time periods. The Cretaceous Apulian Carbonate Platform in Italy