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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 ...
A shell midden at Enterprise, Florida in 1875.. The foundation of Florida was located in the continent of Gondwana at the South Pole 650 million years ago (Mya). When Gondwana collided with the continent of Laurentia 300 Mya, it had moved further north. 200 Mya, the merged continents containing what would be Florida, had moved north of the equator.
The union of all of Earth's continents into a single land mass changed the way the atmosphere and oceans circulated. This left what is now the eastern US with a hot climate and pronounced seasons. [46] Much of the country was located at about 30 latitudinal degrees North, where there tends to be high atmospheric pressures and little precipitation.
Florida's economy has been based primarily upon agricultural products such as citrus fruits, strawberries, nuts, sugarcane and cattle. [54] The boll weevil devastated cotton crops during the early 20th century. [55] [56] Until the mid-20th century, Florida was the least-populous state in the southern United States.
The oldest dated rocks formed on Earth, as an aggregate of minerals that have not been subsequently broken down by erosion or melted, are more than 4 billion years old, formed during the Hadean Eon of Earth's geological history, and mark the start of the Archean Eon, which is defined to start with the formation of the oldest intact rocks on Earth.
The rocks that form the backbone of the Sierra Nevada are mostly granitic rocks that formed during the Mesozoic Era, when non-avian dinosaurs roamed the Earth. At that time, an arc-shaped chain of volcanoes, similar to the present-day Cascade volcanic arc, erupted where the Sierra Nevada now stands.
Before it split into the continents we know today, Earth was home to just a single landmass, or "supercontinent," called Pangea. Over tens of millions of years, as the familiar story goes, these ...
Central Florida is known as the lightning capital of the United States, as it experiences more lightning strikes than anywhere else in the country. [26] Florida has the highest average precipitation of any state, in large part because afternoon thunderstorms are common in most of the state from late spring until early autumn. A fair day may be ...