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 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