The northern Gulf of Mexico margin encompasses a variety of depositional settings characterized by different drainage basin size, physiography, fluvial morphology, climatic setting, and structural and diapiric activity. This, plus the abundance of long sediment cores and platform borings from oil industry activities, make it an unparalleled natural laboratory for sedimentological and stratigraphic studies and for testing sequence stratigraphic concepts. This volume contains twelve papers describing results from high-resolution stratigraphic studies of late Quaternary strata of the northern Gulf of Mexico, from the mouth of the Apalachicola River to the Rio Grande. These papers focus on fluvial response to climate and base-level change, variations in delta growth and evolution across the shelf, lowstand delta-fan evolution, the evolution of transgressive deposits on the shelf, the preservation of these deposits. The robust chronostratigraphic frameworks developed for the different study areas allows comparison of stratal geometries produced by contemporaneous depositional systems operating under identical eustatic conditions.

This volume will appeal to sedimentologists and stratigraphers interested in source to sink issues, such as how various forcing mechanisms influence strata formation on continental margins. It is a valuable reference for sequence stratigraphers because it provides numerous examples of sedimentary response to changing climate and eustasy and characterization of systems tracts and their bounding surfaces. Lastly, the case studies presented in this volume can be used to test and calibrate quantitative stratigraphic models and for predicting reservoir occurrence within a sequence stratigraphic framework.

Dedication: Martin Lagoe

Late Quaternary stratigraphic evolution of the northern Gulf of Mexico margin: A synthesis — John Anderson, Antonio Rodriguez, Kenneth Abdulah, Richard H. Fillon, Laura Banfield, Heather McKeown, and Julia Wellner

High-resolution stratigraphy of a sandy, ramp-type margin—Apalachicola, Florida — Heather A. McKeown, Philip J. Bart, and John B. Anderson

Late Quaternary stratigraphic evolution of the Alabama–west Florida outer continental shelf — Philip J. Bart and John B. Anderson

Late Quaternary geology of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico shelf: Sedimentology, depositional history, and ancient analogs of a major shelf sand sheet of the modern transgressive systems tract — Randolph A. McBride, Thomas F. Moslow, Harry H. Roberts, and Richard J. Diecchio

Sequence stratigraphy of a continental margin subjected to low-energy and low-sediment-supply environmental boundary conditions: late Pleistocene–Holocene deposition offshore Alabama — Louis R. Bartek, Brian S. Cabote, Tonja Young, and William Schroeder

Late Quaternary deposition and paleobathymetry at the shelf–slope transition, ancestral Mobile River delta complex, northeastern Gulf of Mexico — Richard H. Fillon, Barry Kohl, and Harry H. Roberts

Depositional architecture of the Lagniappe Delta: Sediment characteristics, timing of depositional events, and temporal relationship with adjacent shelf-edge deltas — Harry H. Roberts, Richard H. Fillon, Barry Kohl, J. Robalin, and John Sydow

Foraminiferal biostratigraphy and paleoenvironments of the Pleistocene Lagniappe Delta and related section, northeastern Gulf of Mexico — Barry Kohl, Richard H. Fillon, and Harry H. Roberts

Late Quaternary stratigraphic evolution of the west Louisiana–east Texas continental shelf — Julia S. Wellner, Sabrina Sarzalejo, Martin Lagoe, and John B. Anderson

The Late Quaternary Brazos and Colorado deltas, offshore Texas—Their evolution and the factors that controlled their deposition — Kenneth C. Abdulah, John B. Anderson, Jennifer N. Snow, and Lynette Holdford-Jack

Late Quaternary evolution of the wave–storm-dominated Central Texas Shelf — Brenda J. Eckles, Michelle L. Fassell, and John B. Anderson

Late Quaternary evolution of the Rio Grande Delta — Laura A. Banfield and John B. Anderson