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To broaden the subjects I write about, the definition of the term “nature” must also broaden. I cover animals and vegetation, how about minerals? The geology of Florida is certainly unique among our United States. For the most part we have only limestone and other forms of calcium carbonate such as seashells here in the southern peninsula. It may be unfortunate that we also have the largest deposits of phosphate in the country, mined and used as fertilizer, or misused depending on your environmental viewpoint.
Sand? I would have expected our beaches to be made from our local rocks. This quote is from a Florida DEP website: “During the later part of the Cenozoic Era, quartz sand and clays were transported to Florida, via rivers and marine currents, from the Appalachian Mountain belt as it eroded over millions of years.” That is why our sand is largely quartz. If you ever visited the beaches of Cancun, not that far away as the seagull flies, you may have noticed that the sand is different. It’s made of ground limestone. It stays cool in the hot sun and feels lighter and it really sticks to you. A sample is displayed in our living room.
As a kid my folks drove to Florida in winter to visit my grandparents who retired to St. Pete, 1937. I learned about coquina, a conglomerate of seashells with some quartz sand that has been used as a building stone and for ornamental roadside boulders. Castillo de San Marco (aka: the fort in St. Augustine) was built in the late 1600s and the Spanish used the only material available, coquina, to build it. It turned out to be a perfect material because it absorbed cannon balls rather than shattering like other materials.
I grew up along the northeast coast of the USA, used to hills and mountains. Our peninsula has a thin sandy soil on porous limestone on top of bedrock known as the Florida Platform. Just before the age of dinosaurs, our bedrock split from the African plate as Pangea split up. The geology of Florida sounds a bit dull, but earthquakes are nearly unheard of here.
Fossils too are found in Florida. While canoeing the lower Myakka River a couple years ago, I found fossilized mammal bones along the bank. They just look like smooth black stones but too oddly shaped, like a section of rib. Agatized seashells and other fossils are also local to us. During construction activities in Tampa Bay a large amount of agatized coral was found. It became Florida’s designated State Rock. Perhaps a meteorite? You never know. Hopefully, no asteroids.
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