gulf of mexico · elipe cays cape canaveral (cape kennedy) anastasia i. s a b a n a-c a m a g ... h...

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R

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White Lake

Grand Lake

Calcasieu Lake

SabineLake

LakePontchartrain

LakeOkeechobee

Lake Kissimmee

LakeGeorge

TsalaApopkaLake

VermilionBay

Rio Grandedel Norte

Río Bravo

Mississippi

Pea

rlBrazos

Colo

rad

o

Gu

ad

alu

pe

San Antonio

Ap

ala

chic

ola

Su

wa

nn

ee

San Ferna

nd

o

Esc

am

bia

P´erez Island

Marco Island

Key LargoDry Tortugas

MarquesasKeys

Sugarloaf Key

Key Biscayne

Cedar Keys

Longboat Key

Siesta Key

Hog I.

Cape Rojo

Chan

deleu

r Is.

Marsh I.

MississippiRiver Delta

Point auFer Island

Matagorda I.

Cape San Blas

Pa

dr

e

Is

la

n

d

Galveston I.

Crooked I.

Matagorda Peninsula

Lighthouse Pt.

St. George I.

Santa Rosa I.

Dog I.

Dauphin I.

Captiva I.

Cape Sable

Sanibel I.

Isle ofYouth

Canarreos Archipelago

San Felipe Cays

Cape Canaveral(Cape Kennedy)

Anastasia I.

S a b a n a - C a m a g u e y A r c h i p e l a g o

Cape San Antonio

Isla del Carmen

Grand BahamaIsland

BiminiIslands

Cape St. George

Isla Contoy

Isla Mujeres

Cape Catoche

PuntaYalkubul

CayosArcas

Punta Frontera

Punta San Juan

Punta Roca Partida

Cat I.

F L O R I D A P L A I N

CA

MP

EC

HE

CA

NY

ON

C A N Y O NMISS I SS I P

PI C

AN

YON

FL

O

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DA

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EL

D E S O T O

S I G S B E E P L A I N

C A M P E C H E B A N K

WE

ST

F

LO

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DA

S

HE

LF

F lor idaMiddle Ground

FL

OR

ID

A

ES

CA

RP

ME

NT

WE

ST

F

LO

RI

DA

S

LO

PE

HE

ND

ER

SO

N

RI

DG

E

T A B A S C O S H E L F

C E N T R A L S L O P E

S I GS

BE

E

ES C A R P

ME

NT

MISSISSIPPI-ALABAMA SHELF

T E X A S - L O U I S I A N A

S H E L F

NO

RT

HW

ES

TS

LO

PE

T H E P I N N A C L E S

C A M P E C H E E S C A R P M E N T

Cay Sa l Bank

East Bay

TrinityBay

Lavaca BaySan AntonioBay

Corpus ChristiBay

BaffinBay

Lag

una

Mad

re

MatagordaBay

Laguna deTamiahua

Lag

una

Mad

re

Laguna Machona

Laguna del Carmen

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

C A R I B B E A N S E A

Estero Bay

Whitewater Bay

Florida Bay

BiscayneBay

STRAITS OF FLORIDA

YUCAT !AN CHANNEL

Horseshoe Cove

Suwannee Sound

Crystal BayWaccasassa

Bay

Tampa B

ay

Sarasota Bay

AtchafalayaBay

Galveston Bay

CopanoBay

BretonSound

L. Borgne

Mob

ile B

ay

Pensacola Bay

St. Andrews Bay

St. Joseph Bay

Barataria Bay

Deadman Bay

ApalacheeBay

Apalachicola

Bay

Mississippi Sd.

TerrebonneBay

Charlotte Harbo

r

West Bay

G u l f o fB a t a b a n ´o

Gulf ofGuanahacabibes

Ascensi´onBay

Gulf ofAna María

T´erminosLagoon

B A Y O F

C A M P E C H E

Laguna deSan Andr´es

T H E EV ER

G

LAD

ES

S O U N D OF C

AMPE CH

E

Ft. Pierce Inlet

St. Lucie Inlet

Lake Worth Inlet

ChandeleurSound

Choctawhatchee Bay

EASTERN PLANNINGAREA

CENTRAL PLANNINGAREA

UNITED STATESMEXICO

MEXICO

CUB

A

WESTERN PLANNINGAREA

UNITED STATES

UN

ITED

STA

TES

BAH

AMAS

CUBA

BAHAMASCUBA

Ixtoc I

Macondo wellSite of Deepwater Horizon blowout

PetroniusWorld’s tallest fixed production platform

Tiber wellWorld’s deepest offshore well(art at left)

PerdidoFloating production platformoperating in world-record8,000 feet of water

Y U C A T !A N

P E N I N S U L A

F l o r i d a Ke

ys

Cozumel Island

LOUISIANATEXAS

MISSISSIPPI

ALABAMA

FLORIDA

VILLA CLARA

CIENFUEGOS

CIUDAD DELA HABANA

CIEGO DE !AVILA

CAMAGÜEY

SANCTI SPÍRITUS

LA HABANAMATANZAS

PINAR DEL RÍO

ISLA DE LAJUVENTUD

GEORGIA

SOUTHCAROLINA

TAMAULIPAS

VERACRUZ

CAMPECHE

TABASCOQUINTANA ROO

YUCAT !AN

NUEVOLE !ON

BAHAMAS

M E X I C O

U N I T E D S T A T E S

C U B A

SABINEN.W.R.

ARANSASN.W.R.

FLOWER GARDEN BANKSNAT. MARINE SANCTUARY

LAGUNAATASCOSANATIONALWILDLIFEREFUGE

LACASSINEN.W.R.

SHELL KEYSN.W.R.

MANDALAYN.W.R.

BAYOU TECHEN.W.R.

BRETONN.W.R.

DELTAN.W.R.

BAYOUSAUVAGE

N.W.R.

BIG BRANCH MARSH N.W.R. GRAND BAY

N.W.R.

BON SECOUR N.W.R.

ST. MARKS NATIONALWILDLIFE REFUGE

ST. VINCENT N.W.R.

LOWERSUWANNEENATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

CRYSTALRIVERN.W.R.

CHASSAHOWITZKAN.W.R.

EGMONT KEY N.W.R.

PINELLAS N.W.R.

J. N. “DING” DARLING N.W.R.MATLACHA PASS N.W.R.

KEY WESTN.W.R.

GREAT WHITE HERON N.W.R.

NATIONAL KEY DEER REFUGE

CROCODILE LAKEN.W.R.

PELICAN ISLAND N.W.R.

MERRITT ISLAND NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

BLACKBEARD ISLANDN.W.R.

GRAY’S REEF NATIONALMARINE SANCTUARY

ARCHIE CARR N.W.R.

WOLFISLANDN.W.R.

HARRIS NECK N.W.R.

TYBEE N.W.R.

WASSAW N.W.R.

PASSAGE KEY N.W.R.

CEDAR KEYS N.W.R.

MISSISSIPPI SANDHILL CRANE

N.W.R.

F L O R I D A K E Y S N A T. M A R I N E S A N C T U A R Y

ISLAND BAYN.W.R.

HOBE SOUND N.W.R.

TEN THOUSAND ISLANDSNATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

CAMERON PRAIRIE

N.W.R.

McFADDEN N.W.R.

ANAHUACN.W.R.BRAZORIA N.W.R.

BIG BOGGY

N.W.R.

SAN BERNARDN.W.R.

TEXAS POINT N.W.R.

PINE ISLAND N.W.R.

BIG CYPRESS

NATIONAL

PRESERVE

EVERGLADES

NATIONAL

PARK

CANAVERAL NATIONAL SEASHORE

BISCAYNE NATIONALPARK

DRY TORTUGASNATIONAL PARK

GULF ISLANDS

NATIONAL SEASHORE

PADRE

ISLAND

NATIONAL

SEASHORE

GULF ISLANDS

NATIONAL SEASHORE

CUMBERLAND ISLANDNATIONAL SEASHORE

TIMUCUAN ECOLOGICAL AND HISTORIC PRESERVE

CONTOY ISLANDNATIONAL PARK

PUERTO MORELOS REEF NAT. PARK

COZUMEL REEFSNAT. MARINE PARK

ALACR!ANES REEF

NAT. MARINE PARK

VERACRUZ REEF NAT. MARINE PARK

GUANAHACABIBESNATIONAL PARK

CAYOS DE SAN FELIPENATIONAL PARK

JARDINES DE LA REINA

NATIONAL PARK

CAGUANES NATIONAL PARK

SANTA MARIA-LOS CAIMANES

NATIONAL PARK

PUNTA FRANC!ESNATIONAL PARK

CI!!ENAGA DE ZAPATA

NATIONAL

PARK

BrownsvilleMatamoros

Veracruz

Campeche

Coatzacoalcos

Canc´un

St. Petersburg

TampaClearwater

Bradenton

Sarasota

Naples

Miami

Cape CoralFort Myers

Gulfport

Mobile

New Orleans PensacolaFort Walton Beach

Panama City

BiloxiPascagoula

Galveston

CorpusChristi

Havana

Fort Lauderdale

West Palm Beach

Fort Pierce

Palm Bay

Daytona Beach

St. Augustine

Port St. Lucie

Jacksonville

Orlando

Gainesville

Key West

Savannah

Pinar del Río

Cienfuegos

Tallahassee

Xalapa

Matanzas

Santa Clara

Sancti Spíritus

Ciego de !Avila

Nueva Gerona

Houma

BatonRouge

M´erida

Venice

Tuxpan

Tampico

Minatitl´an

Grand Isle

Morgan City

Baytown PortArthur Lake

Charles

25°N

30°

80°85° 20°95°

80°85°90°W95° 30°

25°N

100°

20°

Longitude West 90° of Greenwich

CCUURRRRENT

CCUURRRREENNTT

27 m

2 m

2 m

36 m

17 m

67 m

13 m

71 m

90 m

41 m

43 m

40 m

97 m

80 m

18 m

24 m51 m

24 m

66 m

75 m

964 m

251 m

133 m

600 m

842 m

970 m

812 m

528 m

355 m

578 m

377 m

1890 m

2509 m

2252 m

1206 m

3450 m

2702 m

3048 m

3481 m

3235 m

2370 m

1527 m

3524 m

3128 m

1172 m

1522 m

3828 m

2221 m

1791 m

1800 m

3264 m

45 m

7 ft

7 ft

56 ft

43 ft

89 ft

59 ft

79 ft

79 ft

118 ft

823 ft

436 ft

220 ft

233 ft

295 ft

135 ft

141 ft

131 ft

318 ft

262 ft

167 ft

217 ft

246 ft

6201 ft

8232 ft3163 ft

7388 ft

3957 ft

8865 ft

1969 ft

2762 ft

3182 ft

2664 ft

1732 ft

7776 ft

5010 ft

3845 ft

1165 ft

4993 ft

1896 ft

7287 ft

5876 ft

1237 ft

5906 ft

11319 ft

10000 ft

11421 ft

10614 ft

11562 ft

10262 ft

12559 ft

10709 ft

148 ft

TROPICC OF CANCER

TTROPIC OF CANCER

1000

ft30

5 m

5000 ft

1524 m

5000 ft1524 m

1000 ft305 m

1000 ft

305 m

5000 ft1524 m

305

m

1000

ft

EASTERN GAPArea maritime boundary

to be negotiated

Unresolved maritime boundary

TIBERWater depth4,132 ft

PERDIDOOperating in deepestwater 8,000 ft

FEET BELOW

SEA LEVEL

TIBERTotal depth35,050 ft

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

35,000

30,000

MACONDOTotal depth 18,000 ft

MACONDO(Deepwater Horizon)Water depth 5,000 ft

OFFSHORE WELL PROFILES

STATUTE MILES

0 10050 150

NAUTICAL MILES

0 10050 150

KILOMETERS

0 50 100 150

1 CENTIMETER = 26 KILOMETERS or 1 INCH = 42 STATUTE MILESSCALE 1:2,643,000

Albers Conic Equal-Area ProjectionStandard Parallels 20° and 28°

Miami

Havana

New Orleans

Houston

Veracruz

FloridaCurrent

GulfStream

LoopCurrent

Detachededdy

YucatánCurrent

UNITED STATES

MEXICO

CUBA

TROPIC OF CANCER

Gulf of Mexico

SUPPLEMENT TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, OCTOBER 2010

PRODUCED BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAPS FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

DESIGN: WILLIAM E. MCNULTY, JOHN BAXTER TEXT: NANCY SHUTE EDITORIAL RESEARCH: BRAD SCRIBER, SOFIA CASTELLO Y TICKELL, SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN EDITORIAL PRODUCTION: MOLLY SNOWBERGER MAP PRODUCTION: DEBBIE GIBBONS, TRAVIS WHITE MAP EDIT: MAUREEN J. FLYNN MAP RESEARCH: DAVID MILLER GIS: ROSEMARY DALEY ART: BRYAN CHRISTIE, DITA SMITH SOURCES: NOAA, NGDC !BATHYMETRY"; INFIELD SYSTEMS LIMITED AND U.S. MINERALS MANAGEMENT SERVICE !OIL AND GAS INFRASTRUCTURE"; GLOBAL LAKES AND WETLANDS DATABASE, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND !WETLANDS"; DONALD R. JOHNSON, GULF COAST RESEARCH LABORATORY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI, AND JULIO SHEINBAUM, CICESE !LOOP CURRENT"; EIA AND MMS !INSET GRAPHIC"; DAVID W. YOSKOWITZ, HARTE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, TEXAS A&M#CORPUS CHRISTI; JORGE R. PIÑON, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITYMORE ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAPS AND ITS PRODUCTS AT NATGEOMAPS.COM OR CALL 1!800!962!1643 COPYRIGHT © 2010 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, WASHINGTON, D.C. PRINTED AUGUST 2010

For the past half century, oil has driven the economy of the Gulf of Mexico. A thirdof U.S. oil production ! ows from nearly 3,500 platforms in the Gulf, with thousandsof miles of pipeline delivering oil and natural gas to shore. Since the " rst Gulf well

was drilled o# Louisiana in $%&', in less than $( feet ofwater, close-in reserves have been depleted and explorationhas marched o# the continental shelf, onto the continentalslope, and beyond. Today Gulf oil is deep oil; the bulk ofU.S. production draws from wells in more than a thousandfeet of water. U.S. Gulf oil reserves are estimated at )).%billion barrels, but as the Deepwater Horizon disastershowed, the challenges of deep drilling are formidable.

NEW DEPTHS The world’s deepest offshore well, the Tiber well (art, above) reaches nearly six miles below the Gulf’s seafl oor. Not yetoperational, it was drilled in late 2009 by the rig Deepwater Horizon, which was destroyed months later drilling the Macondo well. Other record holders in the Gulf: The fl oat-ing production platform Perdido operates in the deepest water—$,%%% feet—and the Petronius tower, the tallest fi xed platform, stands in &,'() feet of water.

A GEOGRAPHY OF OFFSHORE OIL

MEXICO’S OIL DROP Daily output of Pemex, the state-owned oil monopoly, hit 3.4 million barrels in 2004 but has fallen to 2.6 million. The drop is blamed on poor management and declining close-in reserves. Three-quarters of the oil comes from the Gulf, where Mexico has estimated reserves of at least 11.3 billion barrels. Oil and gas sales fund a third of the federal budget; the U.S. is the top importer.

IXTOC I OIL SPILL Mexico’s Ixtoc I well blew out in the Bay of Campeche in 1979 and fl owed for 295 days. Some 3.5 million barrels of oil fouled hun-dreds of miles of shore as far as Padre Island, Texas. Most habitat recovered, but three-inch-thick tar mats remain in some lagoons. Ixtoc I ranked as the world’s larg-est accidental marine spill until it was surpassed by Macondo.

DEEPWATER DISASTER Working in (,%%% feet of water, the Deepwater Horizon rig had drilled &*,%%% feet into the seabed when the exploratory Macondo well blew out on April +%, +%&%. The explosion and fi re sank the ($,%%%-ton mobile rig, killing && workers. An estimated )., million barrels of oil fl owed from the well, creating the worst acci-dental marine oil spill in history.

National Geographic Society

Gilbert M. Grosvenor, Chairman

John M. Fahey, Jr., President and CEO

Chris Johns, Editor in Chief

William E. McNulty, Director of Maps,National Geographic Magazine

THE LOOP CURRENT The Gulf’s largest current, the Loop Current, enters from the Caribbean as the Yucatán Current. Running to depths of 2,600 feet, it can swing directly east to join the Gulf Stream or surge north before curling back through the Straits of Florida. If it penetrates deeply into the Gulf, it often sheds a great eddy, which drifts westward. The Loop Current could carry oil from a Gulf spill up the Atlantic coast.

CUBA’S POTENTIAL Estimates for Cuba’s offshore oil reserves range as high as 4.6 billion barrels. No production has begun, but offshore development rights have been leased by the gov ernment to companies from Brazil, India, Malaysia, Norway, Spain, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

The maximum depth of the Gulf is unknown. Estimates range from &+,*%* to &),*'% feet.

U.S. PLATFORMS A waterborne city of oil rigs rises off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi—but not Florida. Exploration off the Florida coast, starting in the 1940s, yielded largely dry holes, and the potential threat to the state’s top industry, tourism, has been considered too great a risk.

SOURCES OIL !2008": EIA. TOURISM !2009": TOURISM DEPARTMENTS OF ALABAMA, LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI, AND TEXAS; FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE. FISHING !2008 DOCKSIDE VALUE": NOAA. JOBS: MOST RECENT AVAILABLE DATA FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES

Annual revenue Jobs (in $ billions) (estimated)

Oil and gas -+.' &%',%%% Tourism *$.& (+),%%% Commercial fi shing %.' &),%%% Total "#".$ %&$,###

ECONOMY OF THE U.S. GULF

The Gulf holds more than (%,%%% wells and some )*,%%% milesof pipeline.

Coastal wetland

Coastal protected area

Active federal lease as of March +%&%

Shallow water

Deep water (&,%%% to ),,,, feet)

Ultradeep water ((,%%% feet or more)

Oil or gas offshore platform

Oil or gas well

Crude oil or gas terminal

Oil refi nery

Oil- or gas-related pipeline

Maritime boundary

Planning area boundary

Map Legend

T

R

19901985 1995 2000 2005 2009

Shallow water

DeepUltradeep

million barrels

U.S. Gulf oil from federal leases

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

by depth