The Floridian peninsula is a porous plateau of karst limestone sitting atop bedrock known as the Florida Platform. The emergent portion of the platform was created during the Eocene to Oligocene as the Gulf Trough filled with silts, clays, and sands. Flora and fauna began appearing during the Miocene. No land animals were present in Florida prior to the Miocene.
The Floridian Peninsula is a porous plateau of karst limestone sitting atop bedrock known as the Florida Platform. The emergent portion of the platform was created during the Eocene to Oligocene as the Gulf Trough filled with silts, clays, and sands. Flora and fauna began appearing during the Miocene. No land animals were present in Florida prior to the Miocene.
The largest deposits of rock phosphate in the United States are found in Florida. [1] Most of this is in Bone Valley in central and west-central Florida. [2]
Extended systems of underwater caves, sinkholes and springs are found throughout the state and supply most of the water used by residents. This type of terrain (geomorphology) that develops over a carbonate platform or strata is called karst topography.
The limestone is topped with sandy soils deposited as ancient beaches over millions of years as global sea levels rose and fell. During the last glacial period, lower sea levels and a drier climate revealed a much wider peninsula, largely savanna. [3] While there are sinkholes in much of the state, modern sinkholes most commonly form in the Tampa Bay area and Central Florida. [4] [5]
During the early Mesozoic Era (251 – 66 mya) the supercontinent of Pangea began to rift and break apart. As North America separated from Africa a small portion of the African Plate detached and was carried away with the North American Plate. This provided some of the foundation upon which Florida now rests. [6]
The emergent portion of the platform was created during the Eocene to Oligocene as the Gulf Trough filled with silts, clays, and sands. Flora and fauna began appearing during the Miocene.[ citation needed ].
Florida is tied with North Dakota as having the fewest earthquakes of any US state. [7] Because Florida is not located near any tectonic plate boundaries, earthquakes are very rare, but not totally unknown. In January 1879, a shock occurred near St. Augustine. There were reports of heavy shaking that knocked plaster from walls and articles from shelves. Similar effects were noted at Daytona Beach 50 miles (80 km) south. The tremor was felt as far south as Tampa and as far north as Savannah, Georgia. In January 1880, Cuba was the center of two strong earthquakes that sent severe shock waves through the city of Key West, Florida. [8] Another earthquake centered outside Florida was the 1886 Charleston earthquake. The shock was felt throughout northern Florida, ringing church bells at St. Augustine and severely jolting other towns along that section of Florida's east coast. Jacksonville residents felt many of the strong aftershocks that occurred in September, October, and November 1886. [9] As recently as 2006, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake centered about 260 miles (420 km) southwest of Tampa and west of Fort Myers in the Gulf of Mexico sent shock waves through southwest and central Florida. The earthquake was too small to trigger a tsunami and no damage was reported. Minor shaking was felt in Southwest Florida. Some taller buildings in the city of Cape Coral reported swaying. [10] On January 28, 2020, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake between Cuba and Jamaica was felt in Florida, causing many office and residential buildings in Miami to be evacuated. In Orlando, the stadium at University of Central Florida shook from the earthquake. [11]
The Floridan aquifer system, composed of the Upper and Lower Floridan aquifers, is a sequence of Paleogene carbonate rock which spans an area of about 100,000 square miles (260,000 km2) in the southeastern United States. It underlies the entire state of Florida and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
The Cody Scarp or Cody Escarpment is located in north and north central Florida United States. It is a relict scarp and ancient persistent topographical feature formed from an ancient early Pleistocene shorelines of ~1.8 million to 10,000 years BP during interglacial periods. The Cody Scarp has a slope of 5% to 12%.
The Geology of Bangladesh is affected by the country's location, as Bangladesh is mainly a riverine country. It is the eastern two-thirds of the Ganges and Brahmaputra river delta plain stretching to the north from the Bay of Bengal. There are two small areas of slightly higher land in the north-centre and north-west composed of old alluvium called the Madhupur Tract and the Barind Tract, and steep, folded, hill ranges of older (Tertiary) rocks along the eastern border.
The Gulf of Suez Rift is a continental rift zone that was active between the Late Oligocene and the end of the Miocene. It represented a continuation of the Red Sea Rift until break-up occurred in the middle Miocene, with most of the displacement on the newly developed Red Sea spreading centre being accommodated by the Dead Sea Transform. During its brief post-rift history, the deepest part of the remnant rift topography has been filled by the sea, creating the Gulf of Suez.
Much of the state of Florida is situated on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. Spanning two time zones, it extends to the northwest into a panhandle along the northern Gulf of Mexico. It is bordered on the north by the states of Georgia and Alabama, on the west, at the end of the panhandle, by Alabama. It is near The Bahamas, and several Caribbean countries, particularly Cuba. Florida has 131 public airports, and more than 700 private airports, airstrips, heliports, and seaplane bases. Florida is one of the largest states east of the Mississippi River, and only Alaska and Michigan are larger in water area.
The Gulf Trough, also known as the Suwanee Straits, is an ancient geologic feature of Florida present during the Paleogene period. A strong marine current, similar to the Gulf Stream, scoured the trough from southwest to northeast.
The Florida Platform is a flat geological feature with the emergent portion forming the Florida peninsula.
The Arcadia Formation is an Early Miocene geologic formation in Florida, United States. It is part of the Hawthorn Group.
The Choctaw Sea was a Cenozoic eutropical subsea, which along with the Okeechobean Sea, occupied the eastern Gulf of Mexico basin system bounding Florida.
Orange Island is the earliest emergent landmass of Florida dating from the middle Rupelian ~33.9—28.4 Ma. geologic stage of the Early Oligocene epoch and named for Orange County, Florida, United States of America.
The Okeechobean Sea was a Cenozoic eutropical subsea, which along with the Choctaw Sea, occupied the eastern Gulf of Mexico basin system bounding Florida.
Lake Tulane in Florida is one of numerous natural lakes that occupy sinkholes, which were formed by the dissolution of Eocene limestone at depth. Lake Wales Ridge, within which Tulane Lake lies, is a linear highland that consists of unconsolidated quartz sands of the Pliocene Cypresshead Formation. These sands rest upon impermeable Miocene sediments that overlie limestone, which was dissolved by groundwater and collapsed to form Tulane Lake. It is oblong in shape, has a surface area of 88 ares (95,000 sq ft) and has a maximum depth of 70 feet (21 m). It is surrounded by residential housing in Avon Park, Florida.
The Murray Basin is a Cenozoic sedimentary basin in south eastern Australia. The basin is only shallow, but extends into New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. It takes its name from the Murray River which traverses the Basin from east to west.
Paleontology in Florida refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Florida. Florida has a very rich fossil record spanning from the Eocene to recent times. Florida fossils are often very well preserved.
The Hsanda Gol Formation is a geological formation located in the Tsagan Nor Basin of central Mongolia that dates to the Rupelian age of the Oligocene epoch. It formed in continental desert-like conditions and is notable for its fossil mammals, first excavated by Roy Chapman Andrews and the American Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. Hsanda Gol is included in the Hsandagolian Asian Land Mammal Age, to which it gives its name.
The offshore Indus Basin is one of the two basins in offshore Pakistan, the other one being the offshore Makran Basin. The Murray Ridge separates the two basins. The offshore Indus basin is approximately 120 to 140 kilometers wide and has an areal extent of ~20,000 square km.
The geology of Senegal formed beginning more than two billion years ago. The Archean greenschist Birimian rocks common throughout West Africa are the oldest in the country, intruded by Proterozoic granites. Basins formed in the interior during the Paleozoic and filled with sedimentary rocks, including tillite from a glaciation. With the rifting apart of the supercontinent Pangaea in the Mesozoic, the large Senegal Basin filled with thick sequences of marine and terrestrial sediments. Sea levels declined in the Eocene forming large phosphate deposits. Senegal is blanketed in thick layers of terrestrial sediments formed in the Quaternary. The country has extensive natural resources, including gold, diamonds, and iron.
The geology of the U.S. Virgin Islands includes mafic volcanic rocks, with complex mineralogy that first began to erupt in the Mesozoic overlain and interspersed with carbonate and conglomerate units.
The geology of Croatia has some Precambrian rocks mostly covered by younger sedimentary rocks and deformed or superimposed by tectonic activity.
The geology of Cuba differs significantly from that of other Caribbean islands because of ancient 900 million year old Precambrian Proterozoic metamorphic rocks in the Santa Clara province and extensive Jurassic and Cretaceous outcrops.
