Albany And This Weird Area

Southwest Georgia, southeast Alabama, and most of Florida were all ocean bottom until just a few thousand years ago (and may be again pretty soon, according to some estimates!); the whole area is still within about a hundred feet of sea level. That results in a number of odd and interesting geologic and sociological quirks that are new to us. One such phenomena is what's called a 'blue hole'. That's where the high water table and underground aquifers erode away soft sedimentary strata (limestone) just under the topsoil. Then the overlay collapses into the cavern, leaving a deep puncture that lotsa times just appears in the middle of streets, parking lots, and even under buildings. Whatever's above just falls in and is gone! Then, at the bottom sometimes dozens or even hundreds of feet down, there remains a spring that leads into caverns where the water flows. These underground courses have been followed by divers and seismological equipment for many miles, some even draining underground into the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic.

Anyway, here's one that was a park called Radium Springs (because of the radioactivity of the water) that has been a local curiosity here in Albany ever since this city was a winter escape for northerners in the 1800s. It is no longer used because in 1994 the Flint River flooded and destroyed the casino there; then FEMA condemned the property along the river and so it couldn't be rebuilt. It's weird because, behind the chain link fence, you can still see the gazebos and marble piazzas from the old park and, if you allow yourself, you can still see boys in knickers, small girls with parasols, men in seersucker with ladies in flowing gowns as it would have been in 1850. Interesting.


Another kind of cool site here is called the Flint RiverQuarium. It's a pretty pedestrian place except that, uniquely, is has a section where they have excavated to the bottom of one of the blue holes, and created a top-to-bottom viewing pit so you can 'be there'. This is fascinating because the aquifers forming these things have been more or less stable for a long time, resulting in evolutionary oddities like eyeless salamanders, albino trout, other familiar fish and mammals that never, ever see light, that spend their entire life cycles in the dark.

Here's a life form I found at the RiverQuarium that DOES have eyes:


This pose was NOT my idea, but this is a Blue Hole viewing port:


Anyway, this whole area is like the world's biggest sandbox; it's literally a beach (under a thin layer of topsoil) more than two hundred miles wide. See tomorrow's post for another regional oddity that couldn't have happened without that fact.

Bye for now!