Leg XV of the Glomar Challenger departed December 3, 1970, from San Juan and arrived in Panama on January 26, 1971. The cruise was divided into 3 parts: (1) San Juan to Curacao, where a hole reentry system was utilized operationally for the first time to facilitate

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penetration of hard formations in order to recover the oldest rocks in the eastern Caribbean Sea; (2) Curacao to Kingston, dedicated primarily to geochemical studies of the interstitial waters and to organic geochemical analysis of anerobic sediments from the Cariaco trench; (3) Kingston to Balboa, where attempts were made to reach the oldest rocks in the western Caribbean adjacent to Panama and to establish biostratigraphic standard sections. Paleontologists were looking for deep-sea evidence for the final closing of the Isthmus of Panama through the isolation of the Caribbean fauna from the Pacific fauna.

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