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 Island. The Gulf contains a hypoxic dead zone that runs by east-west along the Texas-Louisiana coastline. In July 2008, researchers reported that between 1985 and 2008, the area roughly doubled in size and now stretches from near Galveston, Texas, to near Venice, Louisiana. It is now about , nearly the record. Poor agricultural practices in the northern portion of the Gulf of Mexico have led to a tremendous increase of nitrogen and phosphorus in neighboring marine ecosystems, which has resulted in algae blooms and a lack of available oxygen. Occurrences of masculinization and estrogen suppression were observed as a result.