Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary - History

History

Although fishermen are believed to have discovered and named the Flower Garden Banks, the first recorded discovery did not occur until 1936. The Flower Garden and Stetson Banks were included in a hydrographic survey of the Gulf of Mexico, conducted by the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey (now the National Ocean Service, of which the National Marine Sanctuary Program is a part). The survey provided valuable information about the geology and topography of the banks. Reviewers of this and other surveys conducted in the 1950s concluded that the banks probably originated from plugs of salt pushing the overlaying sediments up to form underwater mountains.

Led by Dr. Thomas Pulley, then Director Emeritus of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, eager explorers in the early 1960s set out to determine the truth behind the rumors of coral reefs in the northern Gulf of Mexico. In addition to professional researchers, the explorers included volunteers from all walks of life. Some thought the area would be too cold, or too turbid, to support any extensive coral reef development. The scuba diving explorations, however, revealed that the Flower Garden Banks did support healthy, pristine coral reef systems.

In the late 1960s, Robert Alderdice and James Covington established the Flower Gardens Ocean Research center (FGORC), heralding a period of intense multi-agency, interdisciplinary research, which continues to this day. Results of this on-going research prompted government agencies to begin discussing the need to protect the banks from increasing human activities, including oil and gas extraction, anchoring on the reefs and harvesting fish, corals and other invertebrates. With passage of the Marine Research and Sanctuaries Act in 1972, researchers began discussing the Flower Garden Banks as a candidate for designation as a National Marine Sanctuary.

By then, recreational divers were also entranced with the Flower Garden Banks. The Houston Underwater Club led the charge to have the banks officially designated by submitting a formal letter of nomination in 1979. Due to a number of issues, it was 11 years before President George H. Bush ultimately signed the document designating the Flower Garden Banks as the 10th National Marine Sanctuary on January 17, 1992. Stetson Bank was brought into the system in 1996.