ABSTRACT

The report classifies sand bodies of the Florida-Bahamas area in order to facilitate their description. Types within this classification are marine sand belts, belts of tidal bars, eolian ridges, and platform interior sand blankets. Each type has its own characteristic relationship of the following descriptive attributes: setting, geometry, internal structure, composition, and texture.

The bottom topographic setting, through its influence on currents, controls sand body geometry, internal structure, composition, and texture. Sand bodies once formed are themselves bottom topographic features that influence the character of associated sediment accumulations and may, by means of a kind of feedback mechanism, exert some influence on their own characteristics.

Understanding the relationship of bottom topography to sand body attributes is important because knowledge of a sand body's topographic setting enables prediction of its other attributes. It follows that reconstruction of regional topographic setting at time of deposition of a particular formation is an important step in establishing the distribution of sand bodies within that formation.