Gulf of Mexico BP reached an $18.7bn settlement with the US government, the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as well as 400 local authorities. To date BP's cost for the clean-up, environmental and economic damages and penalties has reached $54bn. According to the National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of minor accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year. On May 12, 2016, a release of oil from subsea infrastructure on Shell's "Brutus" oil rig released 2,100 barrels of oil. This leak created a visible 2 mile by 13 mile oil slick in the sea about 97 miles
Gulf of Mexico basin subsidence in the central region, as well as heavy sedimentation around the Florida Platform and Northern Gulf of Mexico. While a few intrusive igneous formations found as far south as Mexico City are dated to the Late-Jurassic or Early Cretaceous, the Gulf of Mexico during that time was relatively devoid of igneous activity. It wasn't until the Late Mesozoic that low-volume yet widespread volcanism occurred along the Western and Northwestern margins of the Gulf of Mexico, leaving the Yucatan Peninsula with an extremely alkali volcanic field in the subsurface. The volcanism is believed to have been activated along ancient plate