SMR Aggregates, Inc., Sarasota, Florida, Portell, R.W., Means - SEGS

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Southeastern Geological Society Officers for 2012 President – Marc Hurst (Independent Geological Services, Inc.) Vice President – John Herbert (GeoHazards, Inc.) Secretary/Treasurer – Harley Means (Florida Geological Survey) Past President – Andy Lawn (HSW Engineering, Inc.) Field Trip Leaders – Roger Portell and Eugene Henshaw, Jr. For information regarding the southeastern Geological Society please visit our website at www.segs.org or mail a request for information to: SEGS P.O. Box 1636 Tallahassee, FL 32302 Mission: To advance the science of geology for the membership and the communities of the membership, to encourage the professional and social relationship of members and to provide a meeting for the presentation and discussion of subjects of mutual interest. These ideals are placed into practice through regional meetings and presentations, field trips to locations of geological interest and volunteer efforts by the membership in their local communities, on behalf of the geological sciences. The Society is affiliated with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies.
SOUTHEASTERN GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY FIELD TRIP GUIDEBOOK 56 SMR AGGREGATES, INC., SARASOTA, FLORIDA Roger W. Portell¹, Guy H. Means², and Richard C. Hulbert, Jr.¹ ¹Florida Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 117800, University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 ²Florida Geological Survey, 903 West Tennessee Street Tallahassee, FL 32304 Introduction From the late 1960’s until present, extensive commercial mining has been conducted northeast of Sarasota, Florida near the Sarasota-Manatee county line. Here, fill dirt was first exploited but soon demand for sand and shell increased as numerous new construction projects (e.g., I-75) required large quantities of raw material. The area’s best known quarries, the APAC Sarasota Mines (formerly called the Newburn Road Pit, Warren Brothers Pits, Macasphalt Shell Pits) and the SMR Aggregates Quarries (formerly Wendell Kent Pit, Richardson Road Shell Pits, Quality Aggregates Shell Pits) each mined numerous phases (Figure 1). Many invertebrate paleontologists and fossil mollusk collectors have visited these excavations as they contained some of the richest, most diverse marine shell beds in the world. In the 1990’s the APAC Sarasota Mines ceased operation and the now water-filled pits have become part of Nathan Benderson Park, a world class rowing facility. However, 50 years later, along with several name changes, the SMR Aggregates Quarries still actively mine materials vital to local construction. Currently, SMR Aggregates excavates to a depth of about 40 feet below land surface, extending well below the local water table. First, vegetation is scraped off using large bulldozers then 10 to 24 feet of fill dirt is removed using small draglines thus exposing Pleistocene to Pliocene shell beds. The rich, marine shell beds (Tamiami Formation) are excavated up to an additional 25 feet with large backhoes. Mined material is loaded onto dump trucks, driven a short distance, and dumped into a stationary slurry system. Shell and sand (175 feet³ per minute) and water (5,580 gallons per minute) are 1
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Page 8 and 9: Figure 3. Map of southern Florida s
Page 10 and 11: Unit 1 occurred in a high-energy be
Page 12 and 13: The Unit 4 or lateral equivalent ve
Page 14 and 15: References ALLMON, W. D. 1993. Age,
Page 16 and 17: Plate 1. Common fossil bivalves and
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Page 20 and 21: Plate 5. Common gastropods found in
Page 22 and 23: Plate 7. Common fossil gastropods a
Page 24 and 25: Plate 9. Common fossil vertebrates
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SMR Aggregates, Inc., Sarasota, Florida, Portell, R.W., Means - SEGS

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