SGS 2026 Field Trip

SGS 2026 Field Trip: Coastal Geobiology along Corpus Christi Bay, Oso Bay,  Laguna Madre, and Mustang Island

SGS 2026 will include a half-day field trip on November 5 to Mustang Island, highlighting local geobiological sites of interest. The SGS 2026 Organizing Committee hopes that a local field trip can become a traditional component of SGS going forward, thereby promoting geobiological research throughout the Gulf Coast region.

Trip Leader: Randy Bissell is an adjunct geology professor at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, a Texas Licensed Professional Geoscientist, a Texas Master Naturalist™, and a curation research volunteer at the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History.

Trip Description:  Explore 200,000 years of South Texas coastal history on a five-stop field trip through Corpus Christi Bay, Oso Bay, Laguna Madre, Packery Flats, and Newport Pass. Along the way, we will examine Pleistocene landforms, tidal flats, washover deposits, modern coastal processes, and the remarkable productivity of the Laguna Madre. The trip concludes at the Gulf shoreline, where participants will examine approximately 100 feet of whole core from a deep Oligocene gas well— connecting the modern coast with a much older chapter of Texas geological history.  Short walks are planned, with the bus remaining nearby. Waterproof footwear is recommended but not required.

Detailed Trip Description: 

South Texas—with its lower Nueces River valley, estuarine bays, and Gulf marine systems—offers an exceptional range of active geological processes and ecologically diverse coastal environments. Its landscapes and waterways record major stages of Texas coastal development during the past 200,000 years—a relatively recent interval in geologic time, considering that the oldest rocks in Texas are more than one billion years old.

This five-stop field trip will examine the Pleistocene geomorphic history and sedimentology of Corpus Christi Bay and the adjoining Cayo del Oso waterway, with striking overlooks of the bay and Oso Bay. The trip will then continue to Flour Bluff, where participants will consider the physical setting and remarkable organic productivity—past and present—of the Laguna Madre.

Closer to the Gulf shoreline, the group will visit Packery Flats, an extensive tidal-washover fan and tidal-flat complex behind Mustang Island. The final stop will examine the beach, shoreface, and broad opening through the island at Newport Pass. There, approximately 100 feet of whole core recovered from a deep Oligocene gas well will provide a window into the much longer evolution of the Texas coast.

The trip will include several short, moderately strenuous hikes, although the bus will remain nearby if weather conditions change. Waterproof footwear is recommended but not required.

The lower Nueces River valley is especially valuable for field study because a broad range of landforms, depositional environments, waterways, and ecosystems can be observed within public parks, preserves, refuges, and conservation lands. Each site reveals another part of the region’s natural story. Continued conservation has preserved many of the places needed to understand that story.