The Florida Platform is a flat geological feature with the emergent portion being the Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 peninsula.

Structure

The platform forms a rampart

Defensive wall

A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city or settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements...

 between the Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...

 and the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. The platform's western edge, or Florida Escarpment, is normally defined with water depths at 300 feet dropping dramatically and in a short distance to 10,000 feet. The Florida peninsula is located on the eastern side of the platform where it lies only 3 to 4 miles from the platform's edge. On the Gulf side the platform ends over 100 miles west where a massive cliff rises over 6000 feet from the 10,600 foot depth of the Gulf floor. The western reaches of the platform just off of Tampa

Tampa, Florida

Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....

 were explored by the submersible DSV Alvin

DSV Alvin

Alvin is a manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The vehicle was built by General Mills' Electronics Group in the same factory used to manufacture breakfast cereal-producing...

. Examination has placed the depth of carbonate

Carbonate

In chemistry, a carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, . The name may also mean an ester of carbonic acid, an organic compound containing the carbonate group C2....

 rocks at greater than 20,000 feet.

Basement

The platform's basement rocks include Precambrian

Precambrian

The Precambrian is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale...

-Cambrian

Cambrian

The Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...

 igneous rock

Igneous rock

Igneous rock is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava...

s, Ordovician

Ordovician

The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...

-Devonian

Devonian

The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

 sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....

s, and Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

-Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to  Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

 volcanic rock

Volcanic rock

Volcanic rock is a rock formed from magma erupted from a volcano. In other words, it is an igneous rock of volcanic origin...

s. Florida's igneous and sedimentary foundation separated from what is now the African Plate

African Plate

The African Plate is a tectonic plate which includes the continent of Africa, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges.-Boundaries:...

 when the super-continent Pangea rifted apart in the Triassic and possibly pre-Middle Jurassic. It then secured to the North American craton. One of the early geologic structures is the Peninsular Arch

Peninsular Arch

The Peninsular Arch is a geologic formation and dominant sub-surface structure of Florida.-Age:The arch was present from the Jurassic ~199.6—145.5 Ma through the Paleogene geological periods.-Location:...

 created during the Jurassic.

Emergent portion

The oldest sediments which are exposed are Middle Eocene carbonates found in the Avon Park Formation

Avon Park Formation

The Avon Park Formation is a Middle Eocene geologic formation and is the oldest exposed sediments in Florida, United States.-Age:Period: PaleogeneEpoch: Middle Eocene~55.8 to 33.9 mya, calculates to a period of...

. Most of the state of Florida is covered by Pliocene

Pliocene

The Pliocene Epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 2.588 million years before present. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch...

, Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

, and Holocene

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...

 siliciclastic

Siliciclastic

Siliciclastic rocks are clastic noncarbonate sedimentary rocks that are almost exclusively silica-bearing, either as forms of quartz or other silicate minerals. All siliciclastic rocks are formed by inorganic processes, or deposited through some mechanical process, such as stream deposits that are...

-bearing sediments deposited during sea-level fluctuations and filling in of the Gulf Trough

Gulf Trough

The Gulf Trough, also known as the Suwanee Straits, is an ancient geologic feature of Florida present during the Paleogene...

 beginning in the late Tertiary

Tertiary

The Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...

 and Quaternary

Quaternary

The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...

.