Gulf of Mexico 1979, the "Ixtoc I" oil platform in the Bay of Campeche suffered a blowout leading to a catastrophic explosion, which resulted in a massive oil spill that continued for nine months before the well was finally capped. This was ranked as the largest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico until the "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill in 2010. On April 20, 2010, the "Deepwater Horizon" oil platform, located in the Mississippi Canyon about off the Louisiana coast, suffered a catastrophic explosion; it sank a day-and-a-half later. It was in the process of being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment, to
Gulf of Mexico origin for the Gulf of Mexico at the close of the Permian, which could have caused the Permian–Triassic extinction event. However, Gulf Coast geologists do not regard this hypothesis as having any credibility. Instead they overwhelmingly accept plate tectonics, not an asteroid impact, as having created the Gulf of Mexico as illustrated by papers authored by Kevin Mickus and others. This hypothesis is not to be confused with the Chicxulub Crater, a large impact crater on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico on the Yucatán Peninsula. Increasingly, the Gulf of Mexico is regarded as a backarc basin behind the