Geology of Canaveral National Seashore, Florida

Geodiversity is the full range of a park's geologic resources — rocks, minerals, sediments, fossils, landforms and the processes that shape them — together with its soils. The National Park Service's Geodiversity Atlas, produced by the Geologic Resources Inventory, gathers that information for education, geoconservation and the joint management of each park's living and non-living resources.

Playalinda Beach, Canaveral National Seashore. Image from the National Park Service's page.

The park

Canaveral National Seashore lies on Florida's east-central coast, between New Smyrna Beach and the John F. Kennedy Space Center, in southeast Volusia and northeast Brevard counties.

• Established January 3, 1975, it covers about 23,335 hectares (57,662 acres) and protects a 39-km (24-mile) stretch of barrier island — beach, dune, marsh and lagoon.
• Its three beaches — Playalinda, Klondike and Apollo — form the longest undeveloped beach on Florida's east coast.
• Mosquito Lagoon, part of the Indian River Lagoon system, makes up about two-thirds of the park and is a state aquatic preserve. The Indian River Lagoon is considered North America's most species-rich estuary and is an EPA-designated estuary of national significance.
• The park shelters more than a dozen threatened and endangered species and has more sea turtle nests than any other national park unit — more than 8,000 a year.
• Archeological sites record human life on the Florida peninsula from 4,000 years ago to the early 20th century, including more than 180 Native American burial mounds, shell mounds, historic buildings and ruins.
• The park's highest point is Turtle Mound, a 10-meter (35-foot) mound of oyster shells built by Native people between 800 and 1400 AD.

Geologic setting

The geology is young: Quaternary sediments constantly reworked by the sea. The barrier island complex has been shaped above all by the rise and fall of sea level through the Pleistocene to today.

Mapped surface deposits include:

• the Pleistocene Anastasia Formation — the park's only formally named geologic unit;
• Quaternary beach-ridge and dune sediments;
• Holocene sediments from beach, swamp, dune and shallow-marine settings.

The Anastasia Formation formed on ancient beaches and shallow sea floors, where sand grains and shell fragments cemented into a rock called coquina. Coquina from this formation was used to build Fort Matanzas, north of the seashore. The Anastasia Formation lies beneath the area west of Mosquito Lagoon and north of Merritt Island.

The seashore belongs to the Floridian Section of the Coastal Plain province, sharing its geologic history with a region far beyond the park.

A boardwalk trail under moss-draped trees. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Maps and reports

The Geologic Resources Inventory produces digital geologic maps and reports for more than 270 natural resource parks. For this park they include scoping summaries, digital geologic maps for GIS and Google Earth, a report on its setting, features, management issues and history, posters and a project overview. A Soil Resources Inventory has also been completed. All are available through the NPS DataStore.

Sources

Based on "NPS Geodiversity Atlas—Canaveral National Seashore, Florida," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.