Welcome, fellow explorers of the weird and watery! If you’ve ever set foot in the Florida Everglades, you know it’s a place of slow-moving rivers, endless sawgrass, and gator-filled marshes. But beneath the surface of this iconic landscape is a story most park brochures don’t mention, one written in acid rain, ancient seas, and vanishing stone.
What Lies Beneath?
The Everglades may look flat and soggy over most of its area, but it’s actually built on a bedrock of limestone. Limestone is a soft, sedimentary rock composed primarily of the skeletal remains of marine organisms. This rock has a secret: it’s slowly dissolving.
Here’s how: When rain falls through the atmosphere and seeps into the soil, it gathers carbon dioxide (CO₂). This CO₂ reacts with water to form a mild acid known as carbonic acid. While it’s gentle enough not to hurt your skin, it’s strong enough, over geologic time, to dissolve limestone.
This process is called chemical weathering, and it’s the sculptor behind the Everglades’ lesser-known landscape feature: karst topography.
Karst: Florida’s Subterranean Secret
Karst isn’t just a geology buzzword, it’s the name for land shaped by the dissolution of soluble rock (like limestone, dolomite, or gypsum). In Florida’s case, it’s almost entirely limestone. As this rock dissolves, it creates voids, cavities, sinkholes, springs, and disappearing streams.
These aren’t dramatic movie-style sinkholes (although Florida has those too). Sometimes, they’re subtle depressions or quiet pools where the land has sagged ever so slightly. Other times, you’ll see mysterious, standing water even during the dry season. In some of the parks lesser traveled roadways, I found clues that the ground is hollowed out beneath.
Why Does This Matter?
Understanding karst isn’t just academic, it’s practical as well. Karst landscapes are highly porous, meaning they store and transport groundwater. In Florida, this is essential. Much of the state’s drinking water comes from underground aquifers flowing through limestone.
But karst is also fragile. When we build roads, neighborhoods, or even large agricultural operations over karst terrain without proper study, we risk triggering sinkholes or contaminating groundwater. The Everglades remind us that even solid-looking ground can be deceptive.
Your Turn to Explore
So the next time you see standing water in a limestone landscape or a hole where there used to be a driveway, remember you are standing in one of nature’s most quietly dramatic environments.
To help you explore more watch my video of the karst holes I found in the Everglades. And to see how much you learned, take the Clyde Outside karst-themed quiz to test your knowledge and curiosity.
Watch the footage, take the quiz, and challenge your friends to see who really knows what’s happening beneath Florida’s famous swamp.
Stay curious, stay weird, and always look beneath the surface.
Clyde OutsideEEEEE!!!
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