Most plate tectonic models for the opening of the Gulf of Mexico focus on the fit of different crustal blocks, regional faults, the areal extent of abnormal oceanic crust, transitional crust, and continental crust, as well as on today's geophysical data, but only a few include paleogeographic data. High quality paleogeographic maps are available for the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico, but the same type of information for the southern part is difficult to obtain. However, information from many published sources has been used to compile a series of maps of the entire country of Mexico, including the Gulf of Mexico.

The main objective of this project is to build-up palinspastic paleogegraphic maps of Mexico through the Mesozoic, where the various marine and transitional sedimentary facies are restored to their original geographical positions prior to folding and faulting, and then are overlapped on the tectonic blocks involved in the most popular plate tectonics models. The data contained in these maps correspond to outcrops in continental Mexico and to published subsurface data in the marine areas.