The Pinnacles (Gulf of Mexico) lawmakers, fishermen and the oil industry. The Pinnacles (Gulf of Mexico) The Pinnacles is a rocky prominence on the Continental Shelf approximately 300 feet deep and located about 70 miles off the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama which contains a wide-ranging reef formation. The Pinnacles reefs consist of a lush fauna of hard, soft and, black corals, fixed sea lilies and sponges. The reef creates a living habitat for a well-developed and diverse fish culture. Snappers and groupers spawn here. Typical Caribbean reef fishes and Carolinian shelf fishes, along with epipelagic fishes, and a few deep-sea fishes populate the reef.
Gulf of Mexico basin on top, by siliciclastic, eolian, playa and other sediments characteristic of arid terrestrial environments closer to shore, implying that at certain times during deposition, sediments accumulated almost up to sea level. The salt structures, which include anticlines, pillows, plugs and walls, in addition to extensive sheets, were created long after deposition by the rapid overlying sedimentation. Nearer the depocenter, which for the Gulf of Mexico basin was towards the spreading center, terrestrial sediments grade into marine shales and limestones. Post salt deposition, the strata recorded millions of years of marine flooding sediments, carbonates from coral reefs, thick sandstones, and eventual