Oceanographic processes in the subantarctic region contribute crucially to the physical and biogeochemical aspects of the global climate system. To explore and quantify these contributions, the Antarctic Cooperative Research Center (CRC) organized the SAZ Project, a multidisciplinary, multiship investigation carried out south of Australia in the austral summer of 1997--1998. Here we present a brief overview of the SAZ Project and some of its major results, as detailed in the 16 papers that follow in this special section. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union