Recent drilling on the Kerguelen Plateau (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 183) has provided a unique and exciting high latitude record of palaeoceanographic change during the Cenomanian-Turonian in the Southern Ocean. The benthic foraminiferal succession at Site 1138 records the evolution of the Kerguelen Plateau from a subaerially exposed platform in the Cenomanian to a bathyal, pelagic environment in the early Turonian, following a major transgressive pulse and increased thermal subsidence of the Kerguelen Plateau, which led to a sea-level rise of possibly several hundred metres. Assemblages from Alaska demonstrate high organic productivity and low oxygen conditions and the prevalence of elevated temperatures on the flooded shelf of the North Slope. Our results show that the distribution of upper bathyal benthic foraminifers was strongly modulated by carbon flux and oxygenation fluctuations, and not by physical migration barriers. (mod. journ. abst.)