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 wherein thick Jurassic salts and evaporites could be deposited. These evaporites overlay a thick transitional crust, the local basement rock prior to rifting, and deposition of salts continued over the forming oceanic crust as rifting spread the sea floor throughout the Jurassic. It was during the Jurassic, approximately 140–160 million years ago, that the shape of the Gulf of Mexico as we know it was formed. The unique shape of the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded on all sides by continental crust, is the result of two different tectonic boundaries: an ocean-continent transform boundary, and a magmatic plume fueled seafloor spreading