ABSTRACT

The South Florida Basin is part of the larger Florida-Bahama Platform province, a slowly subsiding area.

The South Florida Basin contains several positive and negative regional structural features. Regional relationships suggests that in the deeper portion of the Basin, Comanchean rocks will be underlain by Coahuilan carbonates and Jurassic carbonates and salt which in turn will be underlain by a predominately extrusive basement. Comanchean rocks are everywhere present, are cyclic in nature, and consist of limestone, dolomite, and anhydrite. Comanchean units favorable for oil production are the "brown dolomite", the Sunniland Limestone, and Unit C of the Dollar Bay Formation. Gulfian chalk is replaced by the Card Sound Dolomite in southeast Florida where it has some small oil potential. The Lower Tertiary Cedar Keys Formation, composed of dolomite and anhydrite, has a small oil potential. Eocene limestones and dolomites have little potential because they are considerably flushed by fresh water of the Floridan Artesian Aquifer. The Upper Tertiary is thin and has no favorable characteristics.

Glades Group, Ocean Reef Group, Naples Bay Group, and Card Sound Dolomite are proposed for unnamed sequences in the Cretaceous of south Florida.