The Middle America Trench off Guatemala was transected by 24-channel seismic-reflection surveys, seismic-refraction surveys, and drilling with the Glomar Challanger . The drilling was doneat three sites on the oceanic Cocos plate and four sites on the Caribbean plate. These plates converge at about 10 cm/yr as indicated by global plate reconstruction. On the oceanic Cocos plate a basal chalk sequence of lower and middle Miocene age is overlain by a thin interval of abyssal clay. In contrast is the Cretaceous to lower Miocene claystone sequence recovered only at a site 3 km landward of the trench axis where drilling penetrated the hemipelagic slope deposits. A large amount of sediment along with ocean crust has been subducted during the present (Miocene to Quaternary) episode of subduction, and parts of the continental framework may have been subducted as well. No current tectonic model satisfactorily explains the surprising occurrence of Cretaceous to Miocene claystone at the foot of the continent.