Program: NATIONAL COOPERATIVE GEOLOGIC MAPPING
Project Title: Florida Cooperative Mapping
Location of Study Area: Florida
Project Start Date: 10/01/95
Project End Date: 09/30/00
Project Number: 7220-23090; 7220-37090
Project Chief: Bruce R. Wardlaw
Region/Division/Team/Section: Eastern Region National Geologic Mapping
E-mail:<bwardlaw@usgs.gov>
Phone: 703-648-5288 (or 6916)
Fax: 703-648-5420 (or 6953)
Mailing Address: 926a National Center, Reston, VA 20192-0001
Program Element(s)/Task(s)
Fragile Environments:
Terrestrial and Fresh-water Ecosystem History, Task 1.16 (14%).
Ground-water Discharge to Biscayne Bay, Task 2.1 (1%).
Ecosystem History of Biscayne Bay and the southeast coast, Task 2.5 (9%).
Hydrologic Modeling and Support Studies, Task 4.1 (24%).
Ecosystem History of Florida Bay and the southwest coast, Task 5.2 (14%).
National Cooperative Geologic Mapping:
Florida Cooperative Mapping, Task 2.6 (38%).
Panel:
Collaborators, Clients: The project is funded jointly by the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program and the Fragile Environments Initiative, with added support by the Army Corp of Engineers and South Florida Water Management District. The project is conducted in coordination with other projects based in the Energy Program of GD, the Coastal and Marine Program of GD in St. Petersburg, FL, and WRD (specifically, the Miami office of the southern Subdistrict, Florida WRD), BRD, and NMD. Other agencies involved in site selection, field support, and others aspects of the project include South Florida Water Management District, Big Cypress National Preserve, Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park, Dade County Department of Environmental Resource Management, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Florida Geological Survey, Florida Institute of Oceanography, University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Miami, and several local state parks. In addition the project interfaces with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency (largely in the ecosystem history aspects).
Specifically, the project works closely with Robert B. Halley, Eugene Shinn (sedimentation) and Charles W. Holmes (geochronology), Coastal and Marine Program, St. Petersburg, Thomas M. Scott (sediments, subsurface geology), Assistant State Geologist, Florida Geological Survey, and Fred L. Paillet (geophysics) and Ron Reese (geohydrology), WRD.

BACKGROUND NARRATIVES

Project Justification: A multitude of water-related societal issues face southern Florida in the 1990's. These include irrigation demands of agricultural; business, run-off from agricultural lands and canals, increasing demands of a rapidly growing population in the Naples and Miami area (Miami showing the fourth fastest growth rate in the U.S. in the 1980's), the recently mandated restoration of natural sheet flow through the Everglades ecosystem, and vitality of the important fisheries of Florida Bay. This project provides a baseline for the geologic framework of aquifers and a baseline for ecosystem variability and tracks the change in ecosystems through the last several hundred years to provide critical information for reasonable restoration targets to land planners and managers in southern Florida.

Project Objectives: To provide the framework for understanding (1) the resource distribution (water, phosphate, etc.) in the subsurface of Florida (i.e., the detailed geology of constraining and resource units) and (2) ecosystem variability and change prior to and during human development of South Florida (i.e., the detailed ecosystem history over the last 200 years differentiating natural variability from man-made change).

Overall Strategy, Study Design, and Planned Major Products: Sample modern environments to understand the present ecosystem and locate (with collaborators) undisturbed cores to analyze ecosystem variability and change over the last few hundred years. Analyze deep cores for sedimentology, diagenesis, biostratigraphy, paleoecology, chemostratigraphy in transects across the Florida Peninsula to better understand the subsurface resource distribution, especially provide detailed description of aquifer characteristics. Analysis includes distribution and abundance of micro mollusks, foraminifers, dinocysts, ostracodes, pollen and spores, charcoal, and strontium isotopes. Report all results (see following summary diagrams of the two themes of the project).

WORK PLAN

Timeline:
FY 1998
1. Continue modern census sampling.
2. Complete final coring in the Taylor Slough region and collect a transect of cores across the northern part of Shark River Slough.
3. Develop a collecting and monitoring program with Biscayne Bay National Park of groundwaters entering Biscayne Bay and examine ecosystem history cores to determine the importance and change of groundwater contribution to the bay.
4. Complete analysis of Pass Key core.
5. Finish manuscripts on synthesis of results from cores and species analysis for SFWMD contract.
6. Continue drilling for surficial aquifer and "River of Sand" studies in Collier and Monroe Counties.
7. Complete manuscripts on Hilliard core, validity of the "River of Sand", and stratigraphic correlation of the shallow aquifer system of Collier County.

Planned Deliverables/Products: A synthesis paper in a refereed journal on each of the anticipated outcomes (see milestones).

Planned Outreach Activities: Develop with Everglades and Biscayne Bay National Parks and Big Cypress National Preserve brochures on the projects work in the respective park, develop a eaming display for Biscayne Bay National Park.

Prior Accomplishments in Proposed Area of Work:
FY96-FY97
Methodology for determining Salinity History of bay cores. (Wingard, Ishman)
FY96-beginning of FY98
Methodology for determining Hydroperiod History of terrestrial cores. (Willard)
FY96-mid FY98
Establish Geology of Aquifers and Confining Units. (Weedman)

New Directions, Expansion of Continuing Project (if applicable): Develop bay database to characterize salinity history of each sub basin to provide reasonable salinity values and variations for restoration targets and a monitoring plan.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS, OUTCOMES, PRODUCTS, OUTREACH

Deliverables, Products Completed:
Brewster Wingard, G.L., Ishman, S.E., Edwards, L.E., and Willard, D.A., 1996, Preliminary report on the distribution of modern fauna and flora at selected sites in north central and north eastern Florida Bay: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report 96732, 34 p.
Brewster Wingard, G.L., Ishman, S.E., Willard, D.A., Halley, R.B., and Holmes, C.W., 1996, The biotic record of change in Florida Bay and the south Florida Ecosystem: Program and Abstracts 1996 Florida Bay Science Conference, Key Largo, FL, p. 25-26.
Ishman, S.E., 1997, Modem benthic foraminifer distributions in Biscayne Bay: Analogs for historical reconstructions: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report 98734, 23 p.
Willard, D.A., and Holmes, CW., 1997, Pollen and geochronological data from South Florida: Taylor Creek Site 2: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report 97 35, 28p.
Willard, D.A., Weimer, L.M. and Holmes, C.W., 1996, Vegetational changes over last few millenia in south Florida: evidence from the pollen record: Abstracts with Programs, Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, v. 28, p. A95.
Willard, D.A., and Holmes, C.W., in prep. Pollen census data and geochronology from southern Florida: sites along a nutrient gradient in Water Conservation Area 2A: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report.
Willard, D.A., Holmes, C.W., Fellman, C., Brewster Wingard, G.L., and Ishman, S.E., in prep, The biotic and geochronologic record from South Florida: Mud Creek Site 1: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report.
Willard, D.A., and Weimer, L.M., in prep., Modern pollen assemblages from southern Florida: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report.
Wardlaw, B.R., 1996, Rock, peat, and mud in South Florida ecosystem restoration: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 28, no. 7, p. 87.
Wardlaw, B.R., Weedman, S.D., Carlin, N., and Scott, T.M., in prep., Lithologic description of the GB l core, South Florida: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report.
Weedman, S.D., Paillet, F.L., Means, G.H., and Scott, T.M., 1997, Lithology and geophysics of the surficial aquifer system in western Collier County, U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report 97-XXX, 18 figures, 4 tables, 178 ms. p.

NEEDS

Names of Key Project Staff: N/A

Major Equipment/Facility Needs: None

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