Avon Park Formation

The Avon Park Formation is a Middle Eocene geologic formation and is the oldest exposed sediments in Florida, United States.

Avon Park Formation
Stratigraphic range: Eocene
Packstone from a dredge pile by the Cross Florida Barge Canal
Type	Geological formation
Sub-units	None
Underlies	Ocala Limestone (in part)
Lithology
Primary	Grainstone, packstone, wackestone
Other	Mudstone
Location
Region	Central Florida
Country	United States
Extent	Citrus and Levy County
Type section
Named for	Avon Park, Florida
Named by	Applin & Applin 1944

The Avon Park Formation on the crest of the Ocala Platform.

Age

Period: Paleogene
Epoch: Middle Eocene~55.8 to 33.9 mya, calculates to a period of 21.9 million years
Faunal stage: Clarkforkian through early Chadronian

Location

The Avon Park formation is located on the crest of the Ocala Platform in Levy County with three distinct outcroppings. Citrus County has one outcropping near the county line with Levy County.

Composition

The Avon Park Formation consists of cream to light-brown or tan, poorly hardened to very hard, grainstone, packstone and wackestone, with rare mudstone. Fossils found throughout but not densely. These limestones are interbedded with vuggy dolomites which are soft to very hard and tan to brown, very fine to medium crystalline structure.

The Avon Park Formation, as with many formations, is part of the Floridan Aquifer system. Parts of the Avon Park Formation comprise important, subregional confining units within that system.

Fossils

The fossils are in molds and casts and include:

• Mollusks
• Foraminifers
• Echinoids
• Algae
• Carbonized plants