distance from land. Examination of a core recovered from Florida Bay shows that 
although diatoms are quite common in surface sediment, they are absent immediately 
below the surface horizon, leaving sponge spicules as the only siliceous biogenic 
components in the sediment. Florida Bay, as a shallow water carbonate environment, is 
extremely undersaturated with respect to silica in the water column and at the 
sediment-water interface. It is believed that diatoms dissolve almost immediately after 
death, allowing for quick recycling and reutilization of silica in a silica starved 
environment. Rapid dissolution and recycling would subsequently impede any 
accumulation of dissolved silica in interstitial pore waters. 
1979 0 
Enos, P., and R. D. Perkins (1979) Evolution of Florida Bay from island stratigraphy. Geol. 
Soc. Amer. Bull. . 90:58-83. 
[NO COPY OF PAPER AVAILABLE. ABSTRACT FROM SCHMIDT (1991).] The sedimentary 
record of most Florida Bay islands is an asymmetric cycle consisting of a 
transgressive sequence followed by a regressive sequence, both formed during a 
continuous Holocene rise in sea level. The principal sedimentary environments of 
Florida Bay and the south Florida mainland are represented in the cycle by an upward 
succession of freshwater pond, coastal mangrove swamp, shallow bay (“lake"), mud 
bank, and island. Some parts of the cycle may be missing, but the sequence is always 
the same. Supratidal carbonate sedimentation on islands may develop from coastal 
mangrove swamp or by mangrove colonization of mud banks. Islands have developed 
from mud banks at many different times during the rise of sea level into Florida Bay, 
indicating that mud banks must have existed through out much of the Bay's history. 
Florida Bay probably will evolve into a coastal carbonate plain with inland mangrove 
swamps and freshwater ponds, very similar to the present southwest Florida mainland. 
1 979 
Irvine, A. B., J. E. Caffin, and H. I. Kochman (1981) Aerial surveys for manatees and 
dolphins in western peninsular Florida. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land 
Management, Washington, DC. FWS/OBS-80/50. 21 pp. 
Low altitude aerial surveys were conducted at approximately monthly intervals from 
July to December 1979 to count West Indian manatees ( Trichechus manatus) and 
bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncatus) in western peninsular Florida. Sightings of sea 
turtles, turtle tracks, and a crocodile were also noted. A total of 554 manatees was 
observed in 297 groups. Fifty-eight percent of the manatees were sighted in the 
CollierMonroe Counties area in shallow, brackish inshore areas. A total of 1,383 
bottlenose dolphins was observed in 431 herds, including 700 (in 146 herds) in the Gulf 
of Mexico, 491 (in 185 herds) in bays, and 192 (in 100 herds) in marsh-river habitats. 
Fifty-eight sea turtles (including 45 loggerheads, Caretta caretta) and 30 sets of turtle 
tracks were counted. One crocodile, probably Crocodilus acutus was sighted in the 
Everglades National Park. 
1979 0 
May, J. A., and R. D. Perkins (1979) Endolithic infestation of carbonate substrates below 
the sediment-water interface. J, Sediment. Petrol. . 49(2):357-78. 
[DATE OF SAMPLING UNKNOWN OR NOT APPLICABLE.] Carbonate substrates prepared 
from conch shells and inorganic cleaved calcite were planted both at and below the 
sediment-water interface in a back barrier sound of North Carolina, within a mudbank 
of Florida Bay, and along a barrier reef transect in Belize. Scanning electron 
microscope (SEM) examination of plastic casts of microboring networks formed the 
primary basis of study, supplemented by light microscopy of isolated endolithic 
organisms and transmission electron microscope (TEM) examination of doubly embedded 
247 
