BLACK GOLD. TEXAS TEA. Researchers trace geologic origins of Gulf of Mexico ‘super basin’ success. “The Gulf of Mexico holds huge untapped offshore oil deposits that could help power the U.S. for decades. The energy super basin’s longevity, whose giant offshore fields have reliably supplied consumers with oil and gas since the 1960s, is the result of a remarkable geologic past—a story that began 200 million years ago among the fragments of Pangea, when a narrow, shallow seaway grew into an ocean basin, while around it mountains rose then eroded away.”