International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Site U1482 is located on the northwest Australian margin at 15°3.32ʹS, 120°26.10ʹE in 1466 m water depth. The location of Site U1482 within the prominent hydrographic front separating tropical and subtropical water masses makes it suitable to monitor changes in the southern extent of tropical warm water related to circulation and/or global climate trends. The site is situated close to the oceanographic front between relatively cool, nutrient-rich water carried northward in the Eastern Indian Ocean by the West Australian Current and warm, oligotrophic Leeuwin Current waters, which results in a steep north–south sea-surface temperature (SST) gradient. This strategic location will allow reconstruction of the southwestern extent of the IPWP and monitoring of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) outflow into the Indian Ocean since the early late Miocene. The extended sediment archive recovered at Site U1482 will enable reconstruction of climate variability on orbital timescales over the past ~10 My, which will complement high-resolution records from the Pacific, Atlantic, and Southern Oceans and will be crucial for constraining regional and global circulation modes and Miocene ice volume variations. The new Pliocene record from Site U1482 is also ideally suited to test the hypothesis of a major restriction of warm water throughflow originating from the South Pacific Ocean between 3 and 5 Ma due to the northward movement of Papua New Guinea, which may have been a key factor in the aridification of East Africa and hominid evolution.