Note: This is an Earthcache. There is no physical cache to find. Logging this Earthcache requires that you undertake an educational task relating to the specific Earth Science at the site.
Prior to logging this cache, click on Message this owner, or send an email with answers to the following questions based on your personal observation and signage:
- What evidence do you see of karst topography?
- The sign refers to this as what type of rock?
- What is the importance of this type of rock in the Everglades?
- Required to log this cache: Please provide a photo of yourself or a personal item in the picture to prove you visited the site. Upload the photo with your log.
Everglades National Park
The first criterion listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in its designation of Everglades National Park as a World Heritage Site in 1979 is:
The Everglades is a vast, nearly flat seabed that was submerged at the end of the last Ice Age. Its limestone substrate is one of the most active areas of modern carbonate sedimentation.
What are they talking about?
South Florida was a seabed for most of the last 150 million years, and very stable geologically, no uplifting or faulting. As sea levels rose and fell, the calcium carbonate remains of sea creatures and algae formed sedimentary limestone bedrock. During the Pleistocene this mantle was alternately exposed and submerged by drastic fluctuations in sea level. The present shape of south Florida, with which we are familiar today, is thought to have taken form in the recent past—only about 12,000 years ago with the dawn of the Holocene.
At this location, you can see the surface of this limestone bedrock and how it has been affected by a chemical reaction with groundwater. Chemical erosion of the limestone bedrock causes what is known as karst development. Karst landscape is largely shaped by the dissolving action of groundwater made weakly acidic as rain collects carbon dioxide from the air and from decomposing organic matter on the ground. After many thousands of years, this geological process results in unusual surface and subsurface features including solution holes, sinkholes, vertical shafts, disappearing streams, springs and complex underground drainage systems and caves.
An entrance fee or access pass is required to enter Everglades National Park. Many activities are available in the park, including a series of Ranger-placed traditional geocaches.
Please Note: this Earthcache has been developed in cooperation with Everglades National Park for the enjoyment of visitors. The placement of any cache on lands managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service remains generally prohibited. The placement of any new cache requires advance written approval from the park.
