The Pinnacles (Gulf of Mexico) 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. The Pinnacles reefs are currently too
Gulf of Mexico basin evaporite sediments deposited after the opening of the Gulf of Mexico has become the Florida Platform. Salt in the Gulf of Mexico can be divided into two main regions: the Northern Gulf of Mexico salt basin and the Campeche salt basin; interpreted to have formed simultaneously. Also referred to as the Louann and the Yucatan Salt basins. Salt deposition in the Gulf of Mexico is poorly dated; the Louann Salt has no index fossils and the age is based on the ages of formations below and above. Salt deposition began in the Jurassic after the first rotation of the Yucatan