Gulf Coast of the United States of the Gulf Coast. The following table lists the 15 largest MSAs along the Gulf Coast. Gulf Coast of the United States The Gulf Coast of the United States is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and these are known as the "Gulf States". The economy of the Gulf Coast area is dominated by industries related to energy, petrochemicals, fishing, aerospace, agriculture, and tourism. The large cities of the region are (from west
Gulf of Mexico basin shallow-marine siliciclastics; eventually sediments grade into the Cretaceous carbonates, evaporites, and chalks. More recently, the Laramide Orogeny and consequential uplift of the Rocky Mountains, which led to increased sediments flooding the gulf, is responsible for the rapid loading and burial of the Wilcox Formation (pg 43), which is one of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico formations currently being exploited for hydrocarbons. This rapid loading is also responsible for the first salt flows from beneath the basin-margin region towards the continental slope. Gulf of Mexico basin The formation of the Gulf of Mexico, an oceanic rift basin located between North America