What is the geographical location of the Gulf of Mexico?

As shown in Figure 6- 1, the Gulf of Mexico is a bay where the Atlantic Ocean goes deep into the southeast of the North American continent. Most of them are surrounded by the territory of the United States and Mexico, with a coastline of 4828 kilometers. Cuba Island is located in the middle of the bay mouth, and the straits of florida in the north (only 80km wide at its narrowest point) and the Yucatan Strait in the west (about 216km wide at its narrowest point) are connected with the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea respectively. Bay of campeche is deeply sunken in the southwest. The entire Gulf of Mexico is 1.609 km long from east to west and 1.287 km wide from north to south, slightly oval, with an area of 1.543 million square kilometers. The average depth is 15 12m, and the deepest point is 5203m in Sigeby Trench. The volume of seawater is 2.332 million cubic kilometers. Mesozoic land subsidence, some coasts are still sinking. The continental shelf is wide, 200 ~ 280 kilometers wide in the western Florida Peninsula and the northern Yucatan Peninsula. About three-fifths of the continental shelf belongs to the United States and two-fifths to Mexico. Outside the continental shelf, there are continental slopes, steep cliffs and land uplift, which finally become the Sigsbee abyssal plain, but the northeast seabed is a huge alluvial mound of the ancient Mississippi River under the steep cliffs.

Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments are deep and salt mounds are widely distributed, especially in the northern and western coastal areas, where many oil and gas resources are rich, mainly hidden in Paleogene-Neogene sandstone and Cretaceous limestone; Some have sulfur-bearing layers. Coastal areas are all low-level beaches, swamps and lakes blocked or closed by sandbars, sand mouths and coral reefs. The north bank and the northwest bank are respectively fed by the Mississippi River and the Rio Grande (North bravo river). The Gulf of Mexico consists of several ecological and geological regions, mainly coastal zone, continental shelf, continental slope and abyssal plain. There are beaches, mangroves and many bays, triangular bays and lakes along the coast. The continental shelf has formed a series of almost continuous terraces on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. The width varies from the widest 320 kilometers to the narrowest about 40 kilometers. The continental shelf off the west coast of Florida and Yucatan Peninsula is a vast area mainly composed of carbonate substances. The rest of the continental shelf consists of gravel, silt and clay deposits. Many salt mounds with different depths are buried on the continental shelf and the continental slope extending down to the deep sea plain. Economically important oil and gas reserves are related to these salt domes. The central part of the abyssal plain forming the bottom of the bay is a large triangular area, and its edge facing Florida and Yucatan Peninsula is a steep fault, while the north and west are relatively gentle slopes. The basin is extremely flat, with an inclination of only about 0.3 meters every 2440 meters. From the bottom of the basin, there are many Hayes monks, some of which are as high as 400 meters. These mounds are a way to show the buried surface of the salt dome.

Figure 6- 1 Geographic Location Map of the Gulf of Mexico