What's in the Gulf of Mexico? Meet its 'Hot Tub of Despair' and ancient corals.
A woman in Washington, D.C., may call it one thing. A guy living off a main square in Mexico City might call it another.
But a tug of war over referring to the immense body of water off the coast of the U.S. and Mexico, as well as Cuba, started after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dub the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
Whatever you call it, the gulf has a rich history. It took shape hundreds of millennia before Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo or anyone else could baptize it. Its hundreds of quadrillions of gallons of water won’t quit flowing one way or another. The shrimp will remain just as tasty even if few people actually eat them.
Here’s what to know about the gulf as Trump rechristens it, Google Maps follows suit and many wonder where the name will ultimately land.
The 'Hot Tub of Despair,' ancient salt deposits and World War II wreckage
Names given to the gulf have little bearing on the strange happenings beneath its surface, from fatal pools to coral habitats.
The gulf is home to ancient salt deposits. Some are near cold seeps – where hydrocarbons trapped beneath the seafloor escape upwards in columns of bubbles.
The mix of these columns and salt deposits produces a brine four times as salty as seawater, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publication. A few organisms, including mussels and tube worms, have adapted to life in the brine.
For others, it remains highly toxic.
One pool located 3,300 feet below the surface was dubbed the “Hot Tub of Despair,” partly in reference to its 19 degrees Celsius, or 66 degrees Fahrenheit, temperature. It can be fatal for many animals, according to the Ocean Exploration publication.
The NOAA also estimates the gulf is the tomb of some 4,000 shipwrecks.
Vessels discovered in the area include a War of 1812 privateer, boats sunk by German submarines during World War II and an actual German U-boat sunk by Allied forces, the federal agency said.
The gulf is also home to some of the oldest creatures on earth: black corals. They have been found at over 2,000 years old, according to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council.
Black corals, like trees, form rings as they age. They can be found anywhere from 60 to 2,800 feet below the surface.
How long has it been called the Gulf of Mexico?
The Gulf of Mexico has been so called for over 400 years. English geographer Richard Hakluyt referred to it as the “Gulfe of Mexico” in his 1589 book "The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation," according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Italian cartographer Baptista Boazio called it the “Baye of Mexico” in a map from the same year.
Sheinbaum Pardo cited a map from 1607 that refers to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico in a press conference pushing back on Trump’s name change.
The map also dubs North America as "America Mexicana," or Mexican America. Mexico’s first female president joked that Mexican America has a nice ring to it as a new name for the U.S.
What else could we call it?
Those 16th century maps weren’t the final word on the topic.
Maps and publications from subsequent centuries show the body of water take on other names. Those include the “Gulf of New Spain” and the “Florida Sea,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Cartographer Abraham Ortelius labels it as the "Sea of the North" (Mare de Nort) in a 1584 map, according to The St. Augustine Record, part of the Paste BN Network.
Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés used Mar del Norte in his dispatches, though other early explorers used “Golfo de Cortés,” according to the NOAA.
Other long-forgotten names are “Sinus Magnus Antilliarum,” which appears on a 1588 Portuguese-made map, and Mare Cathaynum, meaning Chinese Sea, which appears on a 16th century chart, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Trump isn't first to propose 'Gulf of America'
Trump isn’t the first American politician to suggest changing the name of the gulf.
A Democratic member of the Mississippi Legislature proposed a bill to change the name to Gulf of America in 2012, according to The St. Augustine Record, part of the Paste BN Network.
The bill from Rep. Stephen Holland would have at least affected the parts of the gulf touching Mississippi beaches but was never passed, according to the Associated Press. Holland said the bill was a joke.
Comedian Stephen Colbert also proposed calling it the Gulf of America when hosting "The Colbert Report" some 15 years ago.
Colbert suggested the change following the Deepwater Horizon spill that dumped 168 million gallons of oil across nearly 60,000 square miles of the gulf.
"I don't think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore," Colbert said in 2010. "We broke it, we bought it."
The gulf and the US economy
The gulf has served as a trade route dating back to the Putún Maya, who ferried pre-Colombian goods on massive canoes from modern-day Veracruz to Honduras, according to a NOAA Ocean Exploration publication.
Today, ports along the U.S. gulf coast do some of the most significant business in the country. Over $200 million of fuel, including natural gas and coal, were exported from Texas ports in 2023, according to the Census Bureau. Texas ports also imported $17 million of industrial machinery; $14 million of electrical equipment and over $10 million of iron and steel.
Offshore oil accounts for around 14% of U.S. crude oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. A significant amount of U.S. natural gas comes from the gulf as well.
A line in Mexican – or American – sand
The gulf is roughly the size of Alaska, over 615,000 square miles. It's almost 1,000 miles wide east to west and 660 miles wide north to south. It is the ninth largest body of water in the world, according to the National Parks Service.
Its shoreline stretches some 3,700 miles ‒ more than half of it bordering Mexico's coast, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, although that does not account for the myriad bays and inlets. It borders five U.S. states and takes in runoff from 33 major U.S. rivers, making it one of the largest watersheds in the world.
Mexican or American wildlife
The Gulf of Mexico basin formed some 300 million years ago, according to the National Parks Service. Its shallow waters became a natural habitat for many kinds of marine life.
It is home to over 15,000 species of fish, making it a massively popular fishing destination, according to the Parks Service. It is also home to 29 species of marine mammal, dolphins, whales and manatees. Five types of sea turtles – all endangered or threatened – move through the gulf.
The gulf is also famously home to shrimp, but many of the people ordering the shellfish at coastal restaurants are actually served imported shrimp, according to recent studies.