In terms of our presently eroding shorelines and vanishing wetlands, the effect of rising sea level, regardless of rate, may well be felt in South Florida within the next 100 years. The rock reef forms a distinct ridge that extends the length of the margin. Modern sediments and reefs have covered the ridge except on its seaward side. The ridge was a crucial pre-existing influence on the location of modern reefs. Interpretive diagram of seismic record.
Geologic maps show contoured depth to bedrock and sediment thickness.
Managers and regulators use the mapped information to select those sites most accessible but least harmful to the ecosystem for location of fixed navigational structures, anchorage of mooring buoys to bedrock, design and placement of entrenched offshore drainage or sewer outfall pipes, and replacement of lighthouses destroyed by fire or hurricanes. The maps show that lime mud and sands are thickest in bedrock depressions. This information is used to avoid outfall installations near such areas and to increase efforts to enhance local environmental conditions. However, the bedrock highs are also those areas where live corals can best be transplanted directly onto bedrock. Where sediment cover is thick, large cement structures elevated above the adjacent sediment-water contact must first be constructed for coral transplantation.