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
Structural evolution of the Louisiana gulf coast The observation of minibasins (small sedimentary basins) and other features have suggested that the salt in the Gulf of Mexico primarily moves by spreading under differential sedimentary loading, which needs many conditions (e.g. huge amounts of deposited material above the salt) to be met. However, models and observation of the northern Gulf of Mexico favor gliding via slope instability. Controversies such as this example indicate that this area is structurally complicated. During the Mesozoic Era, the supercontinent Pangaea began to rift apart, forming the Gulf of Mexico basin within the late Triassic and early Jurassic periods. The rifting was accompanied