Page "Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary" Paragraph 6

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.