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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.
The platform's western edge, or Florida Escarpment, is normally defined where water depths at 300 feet (91 m) drop dramatically and in a short distance to 10,000 feet (3,000 m). The Florida peninsula is located on the eastern side of the platform, where in places it lies only 3 to 4 miles (4.8 to 6.4 km) from the platform's edge.
Water is the dominant force in the Everglades, shaping the land, vegetation, and animal life in South Florida. Starting at the last glacial maximum, 21,000 years ago, continental ice sheets retreated and sea levels rose. This submerged portions of the Florida peninsula and caused the water table to rise.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, sea levels rose, submerging portions of the Florida peninsula and causing the water table to rise. Fresh water saturated the limestone, eroding some of it and creating springs and sinkholes. The abundance of fresh water allowed new vegetation to take root, and through evaporation formed thunderstorms ...
Florida's ancient sand islands stretch for over 100 miles (160 km) down the middle of central Florida. Glacial changes and the rising and falling of the oceans caused dramatic transformations on the Florida peninsula. Covered almost completely by water two million years ago, only a series of small islands existed.
That they did is likely because they were found in natural holes in the limestone filled with water, called solution holes, which better preserves them, Ardren said. Human, animal remains uncovered
As the land from Lake Okeechobee slopes gradually to Florida Bay, water flows at a rate of half a mile (0.8 km) a day. Before human activity in the Everglades, the system comprised the lower third of the Florida peninsula. The first attempt to drain the region was made by real estate developer Hamilton Disston in 1881.
Satellite images illustrate the scope of the damage in coastal communities along the western part of the Florida peninsula, near the Sarasota barrier island of Siesta Key where Milton made ...