This book represents a compilation of data on the physical oceanography, biology and geology of the Texas-Louisiana Outer Continental Shelf by teams led by Rezak, Bright, and McGrail over the last fifteen years. The features of especial interest are the deeper water reefs and submarine banks that occur associated with Jurassic salt diapirs on the outer shelf. The book has seven chapters: Chapters 1-3 provide a regional setting for the geology, biology, and hydrography of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico; Chapters 4-6 describe the geology, biology and hydrology of the coral-covered Flower Garden Banks of the Texas-Louisana Shelf edge, which have been most intensely studied and are used as a model to which other banks on the outer continental shelf are compared. Chapter 7 attempts a classification and characterization of all the banks described.
Some of these results have been published elsewhere; much, for example, is obviously synthesized from the many environmental studies reports prepared by the authors for the U.S. Department of the Interior, whose funding towards cruise costs is acknowledged. The bulk of the material presented in the book is physical oceanography, being data on the current patterns, temperature, turbidity and salinity variations, sediment dynamics, and characteristics of the nepheloid layer (which plays a crucial role in bank ecology). These data were collected from research ships, submersibles, deployed instruments, and by SCUBA observations, and provide, mainly in graphical form, a detailed and valuable reference set for this area. In the sections dealing with physical oceanography the text carefully introduces each new subject with a paragraph or so of simple exposition before embarking on any mathematical presentations which in places will be beyond many nonspecialist readers.
The zonation, abundance, and growth of reef builders at the Flower Garden Banks are the subject of just one chapter. The reefs are of particular interest as they are growing in