REVIEW OF PERTINENT LITERATURE 



The Bahama Platform 



The Bahama Platform (or Bahama Block), representing, as it does, a comtemporary 

 example of warm, shallow limestone seas such as occurred during earlier geological 

 times, has been the object of investigation by many students of carbonate geology. 

 However, the majority of investigations have been concentrated on the sedimentary 

 material covering the shallow banks, and until recently there was scant information 

 dealing with sediments in the deep channels. 



Some of the more extensive contributions to the literature of Bahamian shallow- 

 water sediments were made by Agassiz (1894), Vaughan (1913, 1914, and 1918), 

 Drew (1914), Goldman (1926), Field (1931), Thorp (1936), Newell et^al (1951), 

 Newell and Rigby (1957), and llling (1954). These studies dealt primarily with the 

 grains comprising the deposits, their origin, composition, and general distribution 

 throughout selected areas on the bank, as well as reports on various land forms, reef 

 corals, and topographic features present on the surface and flanks of the Platform. 



Mode of origin and internal structure of the Bahama Banks has received the 

 attention of various individuals. One of the first to speculate on the genesis of this 

 structure was Nelson (in Schuchert, 1935), who entertained the view that the Bahamas 

 were essentially of deltaic origin, and that the materials composing the Bonks were 

 derived from the waters of the Gulf Stream which were checked by Atlantic waters as 

 the Gulf Stream emerged full strength from the Gulf of Mexico. Woodring (1928) 

 believed that the Bahamas represented a series of West Indian Cretaceous folds that 

 were worn down and submerged; the highest points subsequently being covered with a 

 veneer of calcareous sand. 



Field (1931), on the basis of gravity data and stratigraphic observations on various 

 Bahamian Islands, stated that the Bahamas are not underlain by igneous rock and prob- 

 ably did not originate as the result of volcanic action. He concluded that although 

 the Block is approximately in isostatic equilibrium it appears to be somewhat unstable, 

 having undergone several slight vertical movements. Hess (1933), utilizing gravity 

 and bathymetric data, showed that a great submergence in excess of 14,000 feet has 

 taken place in the Bahamas, and the general field of negative anomalies he observed 

 over the Bahama Block is due to a vast thickness of light sediment beneath the Bahamas; 

 however, the dolomitic reef material being relatively heavy causes the anomalies on 

 the reef to be less negative than those in the deep channels. Schuchert (1935) held 

 that the northern Bahama Banks and the western portion of the Great Bahama Bank were 

 composed of essentially unfolded sedimentary strata belonging to the Mexico-Florida 

 foreland plate, while the eastern half of the Great Bahama Bank and the southeast 

 trending archipelago were volcanic in origin and postdated the sedimentary portion of 

 the Bahamas, 



Spencer (in Eardley, 1951) cited an Andros Island deep boring (14,587 feet deep) 

 which showed relatively pure, shallow-water carbonates of Tertiary and Cretaceous 



