Catalina Rubiano

Master’s Thesis Research

Paleoshorelines of the West Florida Shelf

The West Florida Shelf is a wide low-relief platform that was formed millions of years ago. Since the deglaciation following the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago, sea level has risen about 120 meters leaving traces of where it stood still in the form of drowned and cemented paleoshorelines that are scattered across the shelf. Today these paleoshorelines not only serve as important fish habitat, but also hold the key to understanding Quaternary sea level history in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Evidence from high-resolution bathymetric data along with collective knowledge shared among commercial and recreational fisheries suggests these ridges could be even more common and widely dispersed that currently documented.

This flythrough contains a map of datasets, identified and labelled herein as shorelines A-V in which paleoshorelines have been already identified, and for which the high-resolution multibeam data have already extracted to a WFS bathymetry database. These data have been compiled from various sources: USGS, USF College of Marine Science, and NOAA NMFS. Some of these paleoshorelines have been discussed extensively in previous studies (Locker et al., 1996; Jarrett et al., 2005; Gardner et al., 2005, 2007; Allee et al., 2012; Brizzolara et al., 2020; Ilich et al., 2021), while others – The Edges, Radius-Ulna, and shorelines P, QR, and S – have not yet been described. Shorelines have been identified by the depth range in which they lie, their length, and their approximate age based on correlation to the most accurate local sea level curve (Joy, 2019). 

Works Cited

Locker, S. D., Hine, A. C., Tedesco, L. P., & Shinn, E. A. (1996). Magnitude and timing of episodic sea-level rise during the last deglaciation. Geology, 24(9), 827-830.

Gardner, J. V., Dartnell, P., Mayer, L. A., Clarke, J. E. H., Calder, B. R., & Duffy, G. (2005). Shelf-edge deltas and drowned barrier-island complexes on the northwest Florida outer continental shelf. Geomorphology, 64, 133-166.

Jarrett, B. D., Hine, A. C., Halley, R. B., Naar, D. F., Locker, S. D., Neumann, A. C., Twichell, D., Hu, C., Donahue, B. T., Jaap, W. C., Palandro, D., & Ciembronowicz, K. (2005). Strange bedfellows – a deep-water hermatypic coral reef superimposed on a drowned barrier island; southern Pulley Ridge, SW Florida platform margin. Marine Geology, 214(4), 295-307.

Gardner, J. V., Calder, B. R., Clarke, J. E. H., Mayer, L. A., Elston, G., & Rzhanov, Y. (2007). Drowned shelf-edge deltas, barrier islands and related features along the outer continental shelf north of the head of De Soto Canyon, NE Gulf of Mexico. Geomorphology, 89, 370-390.

Allee, R. J., David, A. W., & Naar, D. F. (2012). Two Shelf-Edge Marine Protected Areas in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. In.
Joy, S. (2019) The trouble with the curve: Reevaluating the Gulf of Mexico sea-level curve. Quaternary International, 525. 103-113.

Brizzolara, J. L., Grasty, S. E., Ilich, A. R., Gray, J. W., Naar, D. F., & Murawski, S. A. (2020). Characterizing benthic habitats in two Marine Protected Areas on the West Florida Shelf. In Seafloor Geomorphology as Benthic Habitat. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6806

Ilich, A. R., Brizzolara, J. L., Grasty, S. E., Gray, J. W., Hommeyer, M., Lembke, C., Locker, S. D., Silverman, A., Switzer, T. S., Vivlamore, A., & Murawski, S. A. (2021). Integrating Towed Underwater Video and Multibeam Acoustics for Marine Benthic Habitat Mapping and Fish Population Estimation. Geosciences, 11(176).