ABSTRACT

The large Florida-Bahama platform with abundant carbonate sediments to great depths is the dominant structural feature in Florida. Together with lesser structures, it forms the Florida embankment which is an important element within the Atlantic and Gulf coastal province, a parageosyncline of Mesozoic and Cenozoic age.

The Florida embankment includes buried basement hills, transgressed embayments and fault troughs, the fringing but dominant carbonate platform, occasional deltas, and land ridges resulting from a drop in sea-level.

Like all carbonate embankments, the one in Florida is anticlinal in cross-section, plunges seaward, has an exterior position on the continent, contains abundant carbonate detritus and sulphate evaporites derived from shallow water banks and lagoons, and contains very few sediments deposited above sea level by streams. This embankment is similar to other structural units of the coastal province in having shallow and deep aquifers and deposits of solid, liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons.