Sampling and Preliminary Analysis and Mapping of Texas Bays and Inner Continental Shelf

In December 1975, the first cruise of the Texas submerged lands research program began aboard the research vessel Faye, with 11 days of marine seismic profiling on the inner continental shelf off Brownsville and southern Laguna Madre, Texas. Since that first cruise, research scientists of the Bureau of Economic Geology have spent many months mapping the Texas shelf aboard the University of Texas research vessel Longhorn, and aboard smaller boats, airboats, and land vehicles in and around the Texas bays from Louisiana to the Rio Grande (Fig. 1).

Throughout the program, research personnel of the U.S. Geological Survey, Corpus Christi, Texas, cooperated fully, matched certain funds, and supplied critical equipment and personnel. Consequently, the Texas program was integrated fully with U.S. Geological Survey and Bureau of Land Management studies of the Federal OCS of South Texas.