| Suwannee Limestone Stratigraphic range: Oligocene | |
|---|---|
| Type | Geological formation |
| Underlies | Hawthorn Group-Arcadia Formation |
| Overlies | Ocala Limestone |
| Thickness | 160 ft (49 m) |
| Lithology | |
| Primary | Limestone |
| Location | |
| Region | North Florida |
| Country |  |
| Extent | Leon to Hamilton to Taylor counties |
| Type section | |
| Named for | Suwannee River |
| Named by | C.W. Cooke and W.C. Mansfield |
The Suwannee Limestone is an Early Oligocene geologic formation of exposed limestones in North Florida, United States.
Suwannee Limestone is found in the peninsula carbonate outcroppings on the northwestern, northeastern and southwestern flanks of the Ocala Platform. However, Suwannee Limestone is not present on an area known as Orange Island on the eastern side of the Ocala Platform due to erosion, nondeposition or both. [1] This limestone is present in southeastern Leon, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor, Lafayette counties as well as Hamilton along the upper Suwannee River basin, and southward into Suwannee County, Florida.
Early Oligocene Suwannee Limestone was recognized in the northwestern peninsula by P. F. Huddleston in 1993 as a triple subdivision of Suwannee Limestone, Ellaville Limestone, and Suwannacoochee Dolostone. [2] The Suwannacoochee Dolostone was later officially renamed as the Suwannacoochee Dolomite . [3]
Suwannee Limestone consists of a white to cream, poorly to well hardened, fossil rich, vuggy to moldic grainstone and packstone. The dolomitized parts of the Suwannee Limestone are gray, tan, light brown to moderate brown, moderately to well indurated (hard), finely to coarsely crystalline, dolomite with limited occurrences of fossil-bearing beds. Limestone in silicate form is common in Suwannee Limestone. [4] [5]
The Suwannee Limestone overlies the Ocala Limestone and forms part of the intermediate confining unit/aquifer system. (USGS)
Dolomite (also known as dolostone, dolomite rock or dolomitic rock) is a sedimentary carbonate rock that contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, CaMg(CO3)2. In old USGS publications, it was referred to as magnesian limestone, a term now reserved for magnesium-deficient dolomites or magnesium-rich limestones. Dolomite has a stoichiometric ratio of nearly equal amounts of magnesium and calcium. Most dolomites formed as a magnesium replacement of limestone or lime mud before lithification. Dolomite is resistant to erosion and can either contain bedded layers or be unbedded. It is less soluble than limestone in weakly acidic groundwater, but it can still develop solution features (karst) over time. Dolomite can act as an oil and natural gas reservoir.
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 San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin located near the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. The basin cover 7,500 square miles and resides in northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and parts of Utah and Arizona. Specifically, the basin occupies space in the San Juan, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and McKinley counties in New Mexico, and La Plata and Archuleta counties in Colorado. The basin extends roughly 100 miles (160 km) N-S and 90 miles (140 km) E-W.
The Ocala Limestone is a late Eocene geologic formation of exposed limestones near Ocala, Marion County, Florida.
The Avon Park Formation is a Middle Eocene geologic formation and is the oldest exposed sediments in Florida, United States.
The Coosawhatchie Formation is a Miocene geologic formation with an outcrop in North Florida. It is within the Hawthorn Group.
The St. Marks Formation is a Miocene geologic formation in the eastern Florida Panhandle.
The Arcadia Formation and its sub-unit, the Tampa Member, are Late Oligocene geologic formations in North Florida, United States. It is part of the Hawthorn Group.
The Peace River Formation is a Late Oligocene to Early Miocene geologic formation in the west-central Florida peninsula.
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.
The Columbus Limestone is a mapped bedrock unit consisting primarily of fossiliferous limestone, and it occurs in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in the United States, and in Ontario, Canada.
The Cathedral Formation is a stratigraphic unit in the southern Canadian Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia, on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It is a thick sequence of carbonate rocks of Middle Cambrian age. It was named for Cathedral Mountain in Yoho National Park by Charles Doolittle Walcott, the discoverer of the Burgess shale fossils.
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 Alum Bluff Group is a geologic group in the states of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. It preserves fossils dating back to the Neogene period.
The Monkton Quartzite is a geologic formation in Vermont. It preserves fossils dating back to the middle of the Cambrian period.
The Wetterstein Formation is a regional geologic formation of the Northern Limestone Alps and Western Carpathians extending from southern Bavaria, Germany in the west, through northern Austria to northern Hungary and western Slovakia in the east. The formation dates back to the Ladinian to Carnian stages of the Late Triassic. The formation is named after the Wetterstein Mountains in southern Germany and northwestern Austria. The center of its distribution, however, is in the Karwendel Mountains. It occurs in the Northern and Southern Limestone Alps and in the Western Carpathians.
The geology of Tunisia is defined by the tectonics of North Africa, with large highlands like the Atlas Mountains as well as basins such as the Tunisian Trough. Geologists have identified rock units in the country as much as a quarter-billion years old, although most units date to the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, in the past 250 million years. Tunisia has a small but active mining industry and a significant oil and natural gas sector.
The geology of Saudi Arabia includes Precambrian igneous and metamorphic basement rocks, exposed across much of the country. Thick sedimentary sequences from the Phanerozoic dominate much of the country's surface and host oil.
