Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Part I The GLORIA System and Data Processing
- Part II U. S. East Coast EEZ
- Part III Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean EEZ
- Introduction
- 5 Breaching the Levee of a Channel on the Mississippi Fan
- 6 Morphology of Carbonate Escarpments as an Indicator of Erosional Processes
- 7 Sedimentary Processes in the Salt Deformation Province of the Texas-Louisiana Continental Slope
- 8 Sedimentary Processes in a Tectonically Active Region: Puerto Rico North Insular Slope
- 9 A Review of the Tectonic Problems of the Strike-Slip Northern Boundary of the Caribbean Plate and Examination by GLORIA
- Part IV U. S. West Coast EEZ
- Part V Alaskan EEZ
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Part I The GLORIA System and Data Processing
- Part II U. S. East Coast EEZ
- Part III Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean EEZ
- Introduction
- 5 Breaching the Levee of a Channel on the Mississippi Fan
- 6 Morphology of Carbonate Escarpments as an Indicator of Erosional Processes
- 7 Sedimentary Processes in the Salt Deformation Province of the Texas-Louisiana Continental Slope
- 8 Sedimentary Processes in a Tectonically Active Region: Puerto Rico North Insular Slope
- 9 A Review of the Tectonic Problems of the Strike-Slip Northern Boundary of the Caribbean Plate and Examination by GLORIA
- Part IV U. S. West Coast EEZ
- Part V Alaskan EEZ
- Index
Summary
The Gulf of Mexico Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and parts of the northern Caribbean plate margin were surveyed using GLORIA (Geologic LOng-Range Inclined Asdic) during the U.S. Geological Survey EEZ-SCAN program. In the Gulf of Mexico, the first cruise was conducted in 1982 and three more were completed in the summer and fall of 1985. The survey of U.S. waters around Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands was completed during a twenty-five-day cruise in the fall of 1985 as well. In addition, surveys were conducted in the Cayman Trough and north of Hispaniola during a transit in 1985 from the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean. In total, these surveys mapped approximately 600,000 km2 of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean EEZ along survey tracklines that were spaced 10 to 30 km apart. The data collected included digital GLORIA sidescan sonar images, 40- to 160-in3 airgun and 3.5-kHz seismic-reflection profiles, 10-kHz bathymetry profiles, and total magnetic field measurements.
The Gulf of Mexico is a small, geologically diverse ocean basin that can be divided into three distinct geologic provinces: a salt deformation province underlying the continental slope of the northern and western Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi Canyon and Fan system in the central Gulf, and a carbonate province along its eastern and southern boundaries.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Geology of the United States' SeafloorThe View from GLORIA, pp. 81 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996