A detailed paleomagnetic record of the Gilbert/Gauss reversal boundary in deep sea marls from southern Sicily shows that the remanence characterizing the reversal is carried by a high-temperature magnetite component. A low-temperature component is intermediate between the high temperature component and a present-day overprint, suggesting that is it obscured by weathering. The actual reversal record is clearly affected by filtering caused by early diagenetic acquisition of a chemical remanent magnetization (CRM). Intermediate VGPs show a general confinement to a longitude over the Americas. More specifically, they are restricted to two clusters, a less distinct one off SE South America, and a very prominent one near NE North America. The remarkable coincidence with two 'Hoffmann clusters' [Hoffmann, 1992> suggests that even a CRM acquisition filter cannot entirely obscure long-lived transitional features. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1993