Gulf of Mexico was recently in news for some wrong reasons.

Though there is no doubt about the devastating effect of the recent oil spill on the fauna of this ecologically diverse region, the accurate fact sheet of the destruction is yet to be on the table. While the company and the government responsible for the oil spill are busy debating their roles in cleaning this environmental mess, lets have a look at this worlds ninth largest water body. Gulf of Mexico is known as the Mediterranean of America, stretches 1,600 kilometers from east to west, 900 kilometers from north to south, and has a surface area of 1.5 million square kilometers. There is not much information available on the geological history of this deep pit with shallow coastal waters. The present Gulf of Mexico basin is believed to have had its origin in Late Triassic time as the result of the continental rifting within the North American Plate at the time of its breaking away from South American and African plates. Amerigo Vespucci after whom the Americas were named was the first European explorer of the new world to have reached the Gulf of Mexico, in 1497. After his exploration he returned to the Atlantic Ocean via the Straits of Florida between Florida and Cuba. In 1506 Hernn Corts expanded the Spanish rule to include Cuba and Hispaniola. In 1517 Francisco Hernndez de Crdoba discovered and conquered Yucatn Peninsula. In 1519, after the Conquest of Mexico the whole basin of Gulf of Mexico practically came under Spanish control