The Rivera Ocean Seismic Experiment (ROSE) was designed as a combined sea and land seismic program to utilize both explosive and earthquakes to study a number of features of the structure and evolution of a mid-ocean ridge, a major oceanic fracture zone, and the transition region between ocean and continent. The primary region selected for the experiment included the Rivera Fracture Zone, the crest and eastern flank of the East Pacific north of the Rivera and adjacent areas of Baja California and mainland Mexico. These areas were to be instrumented with land and ocean bottom seismographs in order to determine good source parameter and location data for natural events and to record events along a large number of paths crossing various parts of the region. Explosive charges were to be detonated at sea to supplement the natural events. However, the necessary permission to conduct the experiment was not received from Mexican authorities; therefore an alternate plan was implemented whereby the marine program had to be moved southward outside of territorial waters. This had the effect of transforming this experiment into three, almost independent components: (1) an experiment to study the East Pacific Rise south of the Orozco Fracture Zone primarily using ocean bottom recording and explosive sources. (2) a seismicity program at the Orozco, and (3) a land-based program of recording natural events along the coastal region of Mexico. A considerable amount of useful data was obtained in each of the three subprograms. In the marine parts of the experiment we were able to address a variety of problems including structure and evolution of young oceanic crust and mantle, structure and dynamics of the East Pacific Rise, seismicity of the Orozco Fracture Zone, and partitioning of energy transmission between the ocean volume and the crust/lithosphere. On land, the fortuitous occurrence of the Petatlan M7.6 earthquake of March 14, 1979, permitted the acquisition of an excellent data set of foreshocks and aftershocks of this large event, which provide new insight into the filling of a major seismic gap in the region. This overview describes the scientific rationale and the design of the experiments, along with some general results. Other articles in this volume give preliminary scientific results from certain components of the overall experiment or, in some cases, report on other data pertinent to the scientific goals of ROSE.