The Sigsbee DeepThe name "Sigsbee Deep" has sometimes been applied to Sigsbee Basin, a U. S. Board on Geographic Names approved name for a feature nominally a
42° 58' 00" N 069° 13' 00" W
in the Gulf of Maine. See multiple features named for Sigsbee a

(Mexico basin in the U. S. Board on Geographic Names Advisory Committee on Undersea Features Gazetteer) is a roughly triangular basin that is the deepest part of the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

named for Charles Dwight Sigsbee. There is some confusion of names that apply to the basin or a particular point in the basin, with both being found in technical and popular literature applying to both basin and the coordinates.

Description

The basin is located in the southwestern quadrant of the gulf, with its closest point to the U.S. coast at southeast of

Brownsville, Texas Brownsville ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Cameron County, Texas, Cameron County, located on the western Gulf Coast in South Texas, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border, border with Matamoros, Tamaulipas ...

. The actual maximum depth is disputed, and estimates range between . The average depth of the gulf is roughly . The Sigsbee Abyssal Plain is the deepest and flattest sector of the deep basin.

Name/Location differences

The use of "Sigsbee" for the feature originates from Commander Charles Dwight Sigsbee's Gulf of Mexico surveys that defined the general features of the body while he was commanding officer of the USC&GS ''George S. Blake''. "Sigsbee Deep" applied to the entire deep basin appears on some of th
earliest charts of the Gulf of Mexico
Sigsbee Deep is a variant name for the

United States Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a Federal government of the United States, federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geogr ...

(BGN) approved name of Mexico Basin for cartographic materials produced by federal agencies. A proposal by the United States renaming Sigsbee Deep, with coordinates of 23° 52′ N 91° 35′ W, to "Mexico Basin" was rejected by the Sixteenth Meeting of the GEBCO Subcommittee on Undersea Feature Names, the international authority on feature names, in 2003 with the note that it is "an historical name dating back to Sir John Murray." The committee discussion of the United States nomination Mexico Basin as having the coordinates 23° 52′ N 91° 35′ W as the Sigsbee Deep under consideration noted the Mexico Basin is in the GEBCO Gazetteer with coordinates of 22° 30′ N 95° 00′ W to 25° 00′ N 90° 00′ W.The cited reference discusses differences in United States and IHO committee views and variations between names recommended by the Advisory Committee on Undersea Features (ACUF) of the U. S. BGN and the GEBCO committee. The issue appears to be one of the entire basin or a particular point within the basin for application of the names. The United States' proposal to rename the 23° 52′ N 91° 35′ W point "Mexico basin was rejected while the ACUF Mexico basin with "Sigsbee deep" as an alternate name is given in the NGA database as 25° N 92° W. There are other features with BGN approved names in the region in recognition of Sigsbee: * Sigsbee Plain
23° 30′ 00″ N 093° 00′ 00″ W
ref Name=NGA /> * Sigsbee Knolls
23° 45′ 00″ N 092° 25′ 00″ W
ref Name=NGA /> * Sigsbee Escarpment
26° 00′ 00″ N 092° 30′ 00″ W
ref Name=NGA />

Notes

References

External links

Deep Sea Drilling Project: Leg 10 of the ''Glomar Challenger''

{{Coord, 23, 52, N, 91, 35, W, scale:5000000, display=title Landforms of the Gulf of Mexico Oceanic basins of the Atlantic Ocean Abyssal plains