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Geology:
Land, Weather, & Water
The power of water has shaped the Apalachicola region, and now, for humans, water is power. The region faces tough questions: Who has the right to use water? Which users have more rights than others, and what yardstick(s) should be used to decide? Is there enough to support the region's natural systems, plus its water-based industries such as fisheries and agriculture, plus the flood of people expected to come here to live?
The best way to start wrestling with these questions is to learn as much as you can about the region's natural patterns of water flow-rain, runoff, and rivers (both above and below ground) and what happens to water quality when these patterns are changed. A solid understanding of the subject is a necessary part of good decision-making about water use.
To understand water, you must also know something about weather, which brings us water and takes it away; about rocks, which store and channel water; and about soils, which can transform water quality and let water run off, run through, or accumulate on the land's surface. Geology illuminates the present by explaining the past, bringing together the materials that make up the region with the processes and events that have shaped those materials. Weather, rocks, soils, geology, and water are inseparable.
Studying these topics is not only vital to good land use decision-making, but it's also a journey worth taking for its own sake. Get ready for breathtaking vistas across vast oceans of time, the amazing process of turning mountains into beaches, and the story of a new kind of exploration - mapping the underground frontiers of water's journey.
Note: The content of the website has not been updated since 2005. The site remains online for it's value as legacy content and is unlikely to be updated.
