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Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the southeast limit of the Gulf of Mexico as follows A line joining Cape Catoche Light 2137 8704 21 617N 87 067W 21 617 87 067 with the Light on Cape San Antonio in Cuba through this island to the meridian of 83W and to the Northward along this meridian to the latitude of the South point of the Dry Tortugas 2435 N along this parallel Eastward to Rebecca Shoal 8235 W thence through the shoals and Florida Keys to the mainland at eastern end of Florida Bay all the narrow waters between the Dry Tortugas and the mainland being considered to be within the Gulf Geology Sediment in the Gulf of Mexico Little is known about the geologic history of the Gulf of Mexico Basin before Late Triassic time Some authors have postulated the presence of a basin in the area during most of Paleozoic time but most evidence seems to indicate that Paleozoic rocks do not underlie most of the Gulf of Mexico basin and that the area was at the end of Paleozoic time part of the large supercontinent of Pangea the result of the collision of several continental plates The present Gulf of Mexico basin is believed to have had its origin in Late Triassic time as the result of rifting within the North American Plate as it began to crack and drift away from the African and South American plates Rifting probably continued through Early and Middle Jurassic time with the formation of stretched or transitional continental crust throughout the central part of the basin Intermittent advance of the sea into the continental area from the west during late Middle Jurassic time resulted in the formation of the extensive salt deposits such as the Louann Salt It appears that the main drifting episode during which the Yucatan block moved southward and separated from the North American Plate and true oceanic crust formed in the central part of the basin took place during the early Late Jurassic after the formation of the salt deposits In 2002 geologist Michael Stanton published a speculative essay suggesting an impact origin for the Gulf of Mexico at the close of the Permian which could have caused the Permianriassic extinction event Since Late Jurassic time the basin has been a stable geologic province characterized by the persistent subsidence of its central part probably due at first to thermal cooling and later to sediment loading as the basin filled with thick prograding clastic wedges along its northwestern and northern margins particularly during the Cenozoic To the east the stable Florida platform was not covered by the sea until the latest Jurassic or the beginning of Cretaceous time The Yucatan platform was emergent until the mid Cretaceous After both platforms were submerged the formation of carbonates and evaporites has characterized the geologic history of these two stable areas Most of the basin was rimmed during the Early Cretaceous by carbonate platforms and its western flank was involved during the latest Cretaceous and early Tertiary in a compressive deformation episode the Laramide Orogeny which created the Sierra Madre Oriental of eastern Mexico Today there are 7 main areas of the gulf Gulf of Mexico Basin which contains the Sigsbee Deep and can be further divided into the continental rise the Sigsbee Abyssal Plain and the Mississippi Cone Northeast Gulf of Mexico which extends from just east of the Mississippi Delta near Biloxi to the eastern side of Apalachee Bay South Florida Continental Shelf and Slope which extends along the coast from Apalachee Bay to the Straits of Florida and includes the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas Campeche Bank which extends from the Yucatan Straits in the east to the Tabascoampeche Basin in the west and includes Arrecife Alacran Bay of Campeche which is an isthmian embayment extending from the western edge of Campeche Bank to the offshore regions just east of the port of Veracruz Western Gulf of Mexico which is located between Veracruz to the south and the Rio Grande to the north Northwest Gulf of Mexico which extends from Alabama to the U S Mexico border History European exploration This section does not cite any references or sources Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed April 2008 Fishing boats in Biloxi Graph showing the overall water temperature of the Gulf between Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Although Katrina cooled waters in its path by up to 4 C they had rebounded by the time of Rita s appearance Although Christopher Columbus was credited with the discovery of the Americas by Europeans the ships in his four voyages never reached the Gulf of Mexico Instead Columbus sailed into the Caribbean around Cuba and Hispaniola The first European exploration of the Gulf of Mexico was Amerigo Vespucci in 1497 He followed the coastal land mass of central America before returning to the Atlantic Ocean via the Straits of Florida between Florida and Cuba In his letters Vespucci described this trip and once Juan de la Cosa returned to Spain a famous world map depicting Cuba as an island was produced In 1506 Hernn Corts took part in the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba receiving a large estate of land and Indian slaves for his effort In 1510 he accompanied Diego Velzquez de Cullar an aide of the governor of Hispaniola in his expedition to conquer Cuba In 1518 Velzquez put him in command of an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization In 1517 Francisco Hernndez de Crdoba discovered the Yucatn Peninsula This was the first European encounter with an advanced civilization in the Americas with solidly built buildings and a complex social organization which they recognized as being comparable to those of the Old World they also had reason to expect that this new land would have gold All of this encouraged two further expeditions the first in 1518 under the command of Juan de Grijalva and the second in 1519 under the command of Hernn Corts which led to the Spanish exploration military invasion and ultimately settlement and colonization known as the Conquest of Mexico Hernndez did not live to see the continuation of his work he died in 1517 the year of his expedition as the result of the injuries and the extreme thirst suffered during the voyage and disappointed in the knowledge that Diego Velzquez had given precedence to Grijalva as the captain of the next expedition to Yucatn In 1523 ngel de Villafae sailed toward Mexico City but was shipwrecked en route along the coast of Padre Island Texas in 1554 When word of the disaster reached Mexico City the viceroy requested a rescue fleet and immediately sent Villafae marching overland to find the treasure laden vessels Villafae traveled to Pnuco and hired a ship to transport him to the site which had already been visited from that community He arrived in time to greet Garca de Escalante Alvarado a nephew of Pedro de Alvarado commander of the salvage operation when Alvarado arrived by sea on July 22 1554 The team labored until September 12 to salvage the Padre Island treasure This loss in combination with other ship disasters around the Gulf of Mexico gave rise to a plan for establishing a settlement on the northern Gulf Coast to protect shipping and more quickly rescue castaways As a result the expedition of Tristn de Luna y Arellano was sent and landed at Pensacola Bay on August 15 1559 On December 11 1526 Charles V granted Pnfilo de Narvez a license to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States known as the Narvez expedition The contract gave him one year to gather an army leave Spain be large enough to found at least two towns of 100 people each and garrison two more fortresses anywhere along the coast On April 7 1528 they spotted land north of what is now Tampa Bay They turned south and traveled for two days looking for a great harbor the master pilot Miruelo knew of Sometime during these two days one of the five remaining ships was lost on the rugged coast but nothing else is known of it In 1697 Pierre Le Moyne d Iberville sailed for France and was chosen by the Minister of Marine to lead an expedition to rediscover the mouth of the Mississippi River and to colonize Louisiana which the English coveted Iberville s fleet sailed from Brest on 24 October 1698 On January 25 1699 Iberville reached Santa Rosa Island in front of Pensacola founded by the Spanish he sailed from there to Mobile Bay and explored Massacre Island later renamed Dauphin Island He cast anchor between Cat Island and Ship Island and on February 13 1699 he went to the mainland Biloxi with his brother Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville On May 1 1699 he completed a fort on the north east side of the Bay of Biloxi a little to the rear of what is now Ocean Springs Mississippi This fort was known as Fort Maurepas or Old Biloxi A few days later on May 4 Pierre Le Moyne sailed for France leaving his teenage brother Jean Baptiste Le Moyne as second in command to the French commandant Principal features Gulf beach near Sabine Pass The Gulf of Mexico s eastern north and northwestern shores lie along the US states of Florida Alabama Mississippi Louisiana and Texas The US portion of the Gulf coastline spans 1 680 miles 2 700 km receiving water from thirty three major rivers that drain 31 states The Gulf s southwestern and southern shores lie along the Mexican states of Tamaulipas Veracruz Tabasco Campeche Yucatn and the northernmost tip of Quintana Roo The Mexican portion of the Gulf coastline spans 1 394 miles 2 243 km On its southeast quadrant the Gulf is bordered by Cuba It supports major American Mexican and Cuban fishing industries The outer margins of the wide continental shelves of Yucatn and Florida receive cooler nutrient enriched waters from the deep by a process known as upwelling which stimulates plankton growth in the euphotic zone This attracts fish shrimp and squid River drainage and atmosphericfallout from industrial coastal cities also provide nutrients to the coastal zone The Gulf Stream a warm Atlantic Ocean current and one of the strongest ocean currents known originates in the gulf as a continuation of the Caribbean Current Yucatn Current Loop Current system Other circulation features include the anticyclonic gyres which are shed by the Loop Current and travel westward where they eventually dissipate and a permanent cyclonic gyre in the Bay of Campeche The Bay of Campeche in Mexico constitutes a major arm of the Gulf of Mexico Additionally the gulf s shoreline is fringed by numerous bays and smaller inlets A number of rivers empty into the gulf most notably the Mississippi River in the northern gulf and the Grijalva and Usumacinta Rivers in the southern gulf The land that forms the gulf s coast including many long narrow barrier islands is almost uniformly low lying and is characterized by marshes and swamps as well as stretches of sandy beach The Gulf of Mexico is an excellent example of a passive margin The continental shelf is quite wide at most points along the coast most notably at the Florida and Yucatn Peninsulas The shelf is exploited for its oil by means of offshore drilling rigs most of which are situated in the western gulf and in the Bay of Campeche Another important commercial activity is fishing major catches include red snapper amberjack tilefish swordfish and various grouper as well as shrimp and crabs Oysters are also harvested on a large scale from many of the bays and sounds Other important industries along the coast include shipping petrochemical processing and storage military use paper manufacture and tourism The gulf s warm water temperature can feed powerful Atlantic hurricanes causing extensive human death and other destruction as happened with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 In the Atlantic a hurricane will draw up cool water from the depths and making it less likely that further hurricanes will follow in its wake warm water being one of the preconditions necessary for their formation However the Gulf is shallower and its entire water column is warm When a hurricane passes over although the water temperature may drop it soon rebounds and becomes capable of supporting another tropical storm The Gulf is considered aseismic however mild tremors have been recorded throughout history usually 5 0 or less on the Richter scale A 6 0 tremor was recorded on September 10 2006 250 miles 400 km off the coast of Florida which caused no damage but could be felt throughout the Southeastern United States No damage or injuries were reported Earthquakes such as this may be caused by interactions between sediment loading on the sea floor and adjustment by the crust Pollution There are frequent red tide algae blooms that kill fish and marine mammals and cause respiratory problems in humans and some domestic animals when the blooms reach close to shore This has especially been plaguing the southwest and southern Florida coast from the Florida Keys to north of Pasco County Florida In July 2008 researchers reported that the dead zone that runs east west from near Galveston Texas to near Venice Louisiana was about 8 000 square miles 21 000 km2 nearly the record Between 1985 and 2008 the area roughly doubled in size 2006 earthquake See also 2006 Gulf of Mexico earthquake On September 10 2006 the U S Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center reported that a strong earthquake ranking 6 0 on the Richter scale occurred about 250 miles 400 km west southwest of Anna Maria Florida around 10 56 AM EDT The quake was reportedly felt from Louisiana to Florida There were no reports of major damages or casualties Items were knocked from shelves and seiches were observed in swimming pools in parts of Florida The earthquake was described by the USGS as a midplate earthquake the largest and most widely felt recorded in the past three decades in the region According to the September 11 2006 issue of The Tampa Tribune earthquake tremors were last felt in Flor