Underneath this stretch is coal that used to be a swamp. Roughly 40 to 50 million years ago the Gulf shoreline sat about here, and the peat that accumulated in coastal marshes was buried and compressed into lignite — brown coal, the softest and youngest kind, still soft enough to see plant fibres in. The Wilcox Group carries it in a band running northeast across Texas roughly parallel to the coast, and it has been strip-mined near here to burn for electricity. The same formation's sands are a major aquifer where they reach the surface further north.
Getting there
29.9200, -96.8200
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
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