ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT 17

B. Hopkins, and other members of the United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, in co-operation with the Florida State Geological Survey, may have some value in future exploration.
 The geologists of the United States Geological Survey are not very hopeful that oil will be found anywhere in the Atlantic Coastal Plain, because the stratigraphy and the structure of the beds of rock in that area are in many ways different from those of the beds in the Gulf Coastal Plain, where oil has been found.

 GEOLOGIC FORMATIONS IN FLORIDA.

 The intelligent selection of a location for drilling-a test well involves the consideration of (I) the character of the formations that underlie within a reasonable drilling depth the area to be tested and (2) the structure of the beds, which controls the accumulation of oil. The beds in Florida lie nearly flat and are poorly exposed at the surface, so that th'e information thus far obtained in regard to both these features is meager. The formations that underlie the. center of the peninsula of Florida at a relatively shallow depth do not, so far as known, appear anywhere at the surface in the State, but beds of the same age outcrop 250 miles to the north, in central Georgia. As these formations vary widely in character from place to place the only knowledge of their character in this part of Florida must be obtained from well borings.
 The Ocala limestone, of Eocene age, found near Ocala, in central Florida, is the oldest formation exposed in the State. Oil will probably not be found in it or in any of the other younger formations that outcrop in Florida, for none of them contain much bituminous matter. They consist largely of limestone. The formations below the Ocala, which have been drilled into at a number of places, consist chiefly of white limestone, of Lower Cretaceous age. At Bushnell more than 2,800 feet of limestone, interbedded with thin beds of fine sand, of Lower Cretaceous age, has been penetrated by the drill. These limestones are probably underlain in this part of Florida at no great depth by old crystalline rocks, such as form the Piedmont -area of northern Georgia.




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