The Glomar Challenger was a deep-sea research and scientific drilling vessel designed for oceanography and marine geology studies.

[2] The drillship was designed, owned, and operated by Global Marine Incorporated (now Transocean) specifically for a long term contract with the American National Science Foundation and University of California Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The Glomar Challenger was built to help Harry Hess test the theory of seafloor spreading, which predicts that the age of rock samples increases with distance from the mid-ocean ridge.

When the age of the samples was determined by paleontologic and isotopic dating studies, this provided conclusive evidence for the seafloor spreading hypothesis, and, consequently, for plate tectonics.

During 1970, when doing research in the Mediterranean Sea while supervised by Kenneth Hsu, geologists aboard the vessel brought up drill cores containing gypsum, anhydrite, rock salt, and various other evaporite minerals that often form from drying of brine or seawater.