Although plots of pressure versus depth are useful for understanding the hydrodynamics of ground-water systems, they can be difficult to interpret. Data plotted from a confined aquifer may reflect underpressuring because the aquifer is isolated from hydrostatically pressured aquifers (depth intercept is greater than zero) or because there is potential for downward flow within the aquifer (pressure-depth gradient is less than hydrostatic).

On August 18, 1983, Hurricane Alicia crossed the upper Texas Gulf Coast and caused extensive property damage, especially along West Beach of Galveston Island. Aerial photographs taken before and after Alicia and field measurements made during the first 2 yr after the storm provide a basis for determining nearshore changes associated with a major hurricane and for predicting potential beach recovery. Alicia caused substantial landward retreat of both the shoreline and the vegetation line. Retreat of the vegetation line ranged from 20 to 145 ft and averaged about 80 ft.

Large areas of offshore Texas remain unexplored even though sedimentary facies and structural traps favor the generation and accumulation of hydrocarbons. Rapid deposition of sand-rich deltaic and barrier-strandplain facies that prograded over thick prodelta, shelf, and slope muds initiated contemporaneous faulting, resulting in displacements of as much as 10,000 ft ( 3 km) .The steep fault surfaces extend to great depths at delta depocenters along former shelf margins.

One nonconventional target for increased oil recovery in Texas is oil that remains in abandoned reservoirs, defined as reservoirs that produced no oil or gas in 1977 and 1982. This target includes oil in reservoirs that were never subjected to modern secondary or tertiary recovery methods as well as oil that was not tapped by conventional field development because of reservoir heterogeneity.

These cross sections numerically correspond to previously published onshore cross sections (CS0002--Dodge and Posey, 1981) and extend those sections across the continental shelf into the Miocene, a recent target of renewed petroleum exploration. Lithostratigraphic markers, corresponding to commonly used paleontological markers, have been used to correlate and subdivide the Miocene Series, which constitutes the largest volume of sedimentary fill in the offshore western Gulf Coast Basin.