Deep Crustal Drilling, Texas Gulf Coast, United States of America

The Gulf Coast province provides an array of scientific dilemmas ranging from the origin of the Gulf itself to the causes and effects of long-lasting circulation of thermobaric waters throughout the thick sedimentary section. The Gulf Coast is a “passive margin”, and plate tectonics theory indicates that the Gulf originated by rifting. From the little available information concerning deep structure and lithology, this theory is appropriate but not conclusively demonstrated. The nature of the underlying crust and superjacent sediments and their contained waters; the precise timing of rifting; diagenesis and early depositional history of the sedimentary sequence; fluid dynamics; geochemistry; hydrocarbon generation and migration; thermal history including unusually high thermal gradient; and the fluid pressure regime in the deep sedimentary section are too poorly understood to permit quantitative analysis of processes that are of enormous scientific and practical importance.