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Geology topics

James G. Flocks

Publications and source records attributed to James G. Flocks.

94 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
USGS1998

Geologic controls on the formation of lakes in north-central Florida

Fluid exchange between surficial waters and groundwater, as well as the processes that control this exchange, are of critical concern to water management districts and planners. Digital high-resolution seismic systems were used to collect geophysical data from 30 lakes of north-central Florida. Although using seismic profile data in the past has been less than successful, the use of digital technology has increased the potential for success. Seismic profiles collected from the lakes of north-central Florida have shown the potential application of these techniques in understanding the formation of individual lakes. In each case study, lake structure and geomorphology were controlled by solution and/or mechanical processes. Processes that control lake development are twofold: 1) karstification or dissolution of the underlying limestone, and 2) me collapse, subsidence, or slumping of overburden to form sinkholes. Initial lake formation is directly related to the karst topography of the underlying host limestone. Lake size and shape are a factor of the thickness of overburden and size of the collapse or subsidence and/or clustering of depressions allowing for lake development. Lake development is through progressive sequence stages to maturity that can be delineated into geomorphic types. Case studies have shown that lakes can be divided by geomorphic types into progressive developmental phases: (1) active subsidence or collapse phase (young) - the open to partially filled collapse structures typically associated with sink holes; (2) transitional phase (middle age) - the sinkhole is plugged as the voids within the collapse are filled with sediment, periodic reactivation may occur; (3) baselevel phase (mature) - active sinkholes are progressively plugged by the continual erosion of material into the basin, and eventually sediment fills the basins; and (4) polje (drowned prairie) - broad flat-bottom basins located within the epiphreatic zone that are inundated at high stages of the water table and have one or all phases of sinkhole development and many types of karst and karren features. Most lakes in this study have a small diameter (<1 km) making stratigraphic correlations from lake to lake difficult. Seismic profiles of subsurface features were used to define the lake geologic history and to locate possible breaches in the confining layer that maintains these lakes. Nine types of acoustical signatures were identified from the profiles to describe the structural history of each lake. Using these criteria, Florida lakes can be classified by size, fill, subsurface features, and geomorphology. Classification of the lakes has led to a better understanding of the relation between the geology and hydrology of Florida.

Florida↗
USGS1994

Stratigraphy of the Mississippi-Alabama shelf and the Mobile River incised-valley system

The Mobile River incised-valley system located in the northern Gulf of Mexico occupies an area from southern Alabama through Mobile Bay to the outer Mississippi-Alabama continental shelf. During the Wisconsinan regression, this incised-valley system was fluvially eroded and extended across the exposed shelf to a shelf-margin delta complex. The last postglacial transgression drowned the entrenched alluvial valleys and reworked the alluvial fill and estuarine deposits to form shoals on the middle shelf. As the postglacial transgression slowed. Mobile Bay was formed. Mobile Bay is a large estuarine system protected by barrier islands. This paper documents the late Quaternary history of the Mobile River incised valley and fill. Mobile Bay is a large (> 1000 km 2 ) microtidal estuary in southern Alabama that receives drainage through the Mobile River system. The Mobile River catchment is the fourth largest in the United States and terminates at the bayhead delta of Mobile Bay. The bay is a classic example of a wave-dominated, drowned, fluvial incised valley. During the middle-late Wisconsinan, glacial maximum, relative sea level was approximately 120 m lower than present. The Mobile River incised valley was a conduit for drainage from the catchment to the shelf margin. The sediment carried by the fluvial system during this lowstand passed through the Mobile River incised valley, across the exposed shelf and was deposited on the shelf margin as deltaic lobes. Rapid sea-level rise forced coastal-plain shorelines landward across the present mid-continental shelf. Transgression of the estuary mouth left a series of estuary-mouth-bar deposits that were reworked and overlie alluvial fill. These sand-rich deposits were submerged by the continuing transgression and reworked to form shoals As the Holocene sea-level rise slowed, the Mobile River incised valley became an estuarine depocenter. In the present alluvial valley, lowstand deposits are overlain by estuarine sediments deposited during the initial flooding of the valley and subsequent formation of Mobile Bay. During the present highstand, longshore sediment transport formed a spit across much of the bay mouth, creating a restricted estuary into which a bayhead delta has prograded. Late Holocene deposits in Mobile Bay consists predominantly or lagoonal sediments with bayhead-delta deposits encroaching into the northern end of the bay. The Holocene incised-valley fill (estuarine facies) underlying Mobile Buy fit well into the conceptual facies model of a microtidal wave-dominated estuary. The model does not fit as well, however, with the rapidly transgressed shelf portion of the incised valley. The down dip section does not contain a clearly identifiable (from seismic profiles) estuarine facies; the valley fill is primarily fluvial and is overlain by marine shoals. In the Mobile River incised valley, the distal portion of the valley was rapidly drowned, allowing the thin estuarine facies to be reworked. The proximal portion was drowned more slowly, leaving the estuarine facies intact. Thus, the single incised valley contains two very different types of fill.

Alabama↗
USGS1994

High-resolution single-channel seismic reflection surveys of Orange Lake and other selected sites of north central Florida

The potential fluid exchange between lakes of north central Florida and the Floridan aquifer and the process by which exchange occurs is of critical concern to the St. Johns Water Management District. High-resolution seismic tools with relatively new digital technology were utilized in collecting geophysical data from Orange, Kingsley, Lowry and Magnolia Lakes, and the Drayton Island area of St. Johns River. The data collected shows the application of these techniques in understanding the formation of individual lakes, thus aiding in the management of these natural resources by identifying breaches or areas where the confining units are thin or absent between the water bodies and the Floridan aquifer. Orange Lake, the primary focus of the study, is a shallow flooded plain that was formed essentially as an erosional depression in the clayey Hawthorn formation. The primary karstic features identified in the lake were cover subsidence, cover collapse and buried sinkholes structures in various sizes and stages of development. Orange Lake was divided into three areas southeast, southwest, and north-central. Karst features within the southeast area of Orange Lake are mostly cover subsidence sinkholes and associated features. Many of the subsidence features found are grouped together to form larger composite sinkholes, some greater than 400 m in diameter. The size of these composite sinkholes and the number of buried subsidence sinkholes distinguish the southeast area from the others. The potential of lake waters leaking to the aquifer in the southeast area is probably controlled by the permeability of the cover sediments or by fractures that penetrate the lake floor. The lake bottom and subsurface of the north-central areas are relatively subsidence sinkholes that have no cover sediments overlying them, implying that the sinks have been actively subsiding with some seepage into the aquifer from the lake in this area due to the possible presence of the active subsidence and faulting. The largest and most important features in the lake are the collapse sinkholes found along the southwestern shore that provide conduits for exchange between the lake and subsurface aquifer. There are two basic differences between the southwest and other areas of the lake: (1) the features found towards the central part of the lake are smaller in scale (1to 10 m across) and tend to be singular structures compare to the southwest area where features combined to form larger sinkholes (>400 m), and; (2) the southwest area is the only site where collapse dolines were identified. These dolines are located along the southwestern shoreline adjacent to Heagy-Burry Park. The comparison of seismic profiles from the several other selected lake and river sites to the Orange Lake profiles showed that other study areas were constructed of one or two large subsidences or a combination of sinkholes to form one large sinkhole. Aside from the difference in scale the basic characteristics of the subsidence sinkholes were similar.

Open-File Report↗