Bat Cave Home Page

GENERAL 

How to get access to the Cave
How to be a Good Guest
Where is Bat Cave?

The AREA 

The Geologic Time Scale 
Area rock Layers
Topography 
Geomorphology
Geological History 
           The Paleozoic
           The Mesozoic
           The Cenozoic
Water
The Hydrologic Cycle
Solution
Solution chemistry
Karst Landscapes
Erosional Features 
Depositional Features
Environmental Issues 

BAT CAVE

What is a cave?
How was Bat Cave formed?
Surface Plan of the site
Map of the Cave
Life in and around Bat Cave
A Virtual Trip Through Bat Cave

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

A Quiz

Bat Cave Home Page

 GEOMORPHOLOGY

 
 
 
 

Bat Cave lies  in North Central Florida, in the Central Highlands of the Atlantic Coastal Plain (in red on the map)  between the Northern Zone and the central Mid-Peninsula Zone. 
 
 
 
 

 (Map modified from White, 1964, 1970; Randazzo and Jones, 1997).
 . 
The general county topography is one of a lower, relatively flat limestone plain in the West and South, (in green on the map) and a relatively flat upland terrace, the Northern Highlands, (in pink on the map) in the North and East. The edge of the terrace is clearly delineated by the westward and southward-facing Cody Scarp. In the westernmost part of the county, including the Bat Cave area, land rises again in the Brooksville Ridge. 
(Map modified from Hoenstine et al.,1990)
The basic underpinnings of Florida are carbonate rocks, deposited on a shallow platform over tens of millions of years.  These carbonates (mainly limestones and dolomites) formed in a warm shallow sea much like the Bahamas today, and form a major sequence of rocks, the youngest of which is the Ocala Limestone which is close to the surface in many areas of this region.

The later evolution of the Florida landscape and especially its karsification has had much to do with the tremendous climatic changes that took place during Cenozoic time. The Oligocene marked the beginning of a world wide cooling trend in the  climate with the onset of a major glaciation in Antarctica. Later these glaciers will cover Greenland and eventually, in the Pliocene and Pleistocene will spread across  North America and Europe and grow on mountain chains such as the Appalachians, Rockies, Alps and the Himalayas.

What do glaciers up North have to do with Florida?
As the accumulation of glaciers withdraws increasing amounts of water from the oceans to pile it up on land, the major effect of these glacial episodes is to expose the carbonates (limestones and dolomites) that earlier formed in the seas of the Florida Platform to a land environment, where they are subjected to weathering and erosion. Thus glacial episodes, characterized by low stands of sea level, are times of erosion, while high stands associated with interglacials generally are times of deposition on the platform that flatten the sediments into terraces.

In this area, most of the Oligocene of Florida is gone, eroded by runoff and chemical action of infiltrating waters. Extensive dissolution within the exposed Eocene and older limestones later led to the present karst landscape. Miocene and later rises in sea-level led to the infilling and recovering of many of these karst features. Others filled in with sediments that washed in later.  Frequently these infillings contain fossils that provide us with a great record of past life in Florida.