I thought it was called the Gulf of Mexico, or are we talking about some other body of water?

No mammoths had earlier been discovered on the Texas Gulf Coast, Brian Miles, paleontology curator at the Brazosport Museum of Natural Science, told The Brazosport Facts in Tuesday's online edition.

http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/2/2004/01/13/story006.html

Bingley

It’s a surreptitious approach to that good old American tradition of ‘claim-jumping’. Like the man said, “I’m not greedy, I just want to own the land next to mine.”

The Texas Gulf Coast would presumably be that stretch of coastline, and it's a long one, that defines the outer edge of Texas. As a scientist, Mr. Miles would surely be as specific as possible.
http://www.texasescapes.com/Maps/TexasMaps.htm

Yes, you could also refer to the Florida Gulf Coast, since, like Texas, it has bodies of water on both sides. I'd imagine that for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, "coast" alone would be sufficient.

I don't think it's renaming the Gulf of Mexico, as others have pointed out here, and I agree that it's simply naming a region of Texas--and regions are generally capitalized, at least in American English! 'The Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico' would have simply been to dadburned wordy!

I think it might be useful to add that, as a non-USn, I understood the phrase in exactly the way described by WW and the ASp.

Yup, I'd agree with the others Bingley. I'm thinking he was being very specific. If he had just said "the Gulf of Mexico" then it could conceivably been in Florida or Mexico too. This way, he pinpoints it.

It's like saying something is in Montreal rather than just saying Canada.

In reply to:

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As a scientist, Mr. Miles would surely be as specific as possible.

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If he wanted to be as specific as possible, then I would go for Wordwind's "the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico", or since Texas, as far as I can make out from the map supplied by consuelo, only has the one coast, just 'the coast of Texas'.

Bingley

Oooh, I think this is something of a storm in a teacup, but ...

It can just as easy be interpreted as 'the Gulf Coast, specifically that part which is in the state of Texas.' We are not given privy to the context, but it is not difficult to imagine that it has already been specified which gulf we are talking about.

Why did I think Texas had two coasts?? I got it mixed up with Mexico.