The Leon Sinks Geological Area is located on the

Woodville Karst Plain The Woodville Karst Plain is a karst area that runs from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico separated by the Cody Scarp. This karst plain includes numerous first magnitude springs, including Wakulla- Leon Sinks Cave System, the lon ...

in southern and southwestern

Leon County, Florida Leon County is a county in the Panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. It was named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. As of the 2020 census, the population was 292,198. The county seat is Tallahassee, which is also the state cap ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is a mature karstic area on the Upper Floridan Aquifer. It is one of the most extensive underwater cave systems in the world and connects to

Wakulla Springs Wakulla Springs is located south of Tallahassee, Florida and east of Crawfordville in Wakulla County, Florida at the crossroads of State Road 61 and State Road 267. It is protected in the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park. Description ...

. This hydrological system is extremely vulnerable to pollution because of the very high permeability of the

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate g ...

aquifer. Extensive mapping and exploration of these caves has been done by the

Woodville Karst Plain Project The Woodville Karst Plain Project or WKPP, is a project and organization that maps the underwater cave systems underlying the Woodville Karst Plain. This plain is a area that runs from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico and includes ...

to understand the complex dynamics of the area and to understand the proper ecological approach to keeping this system clean. The Leon Sinks are full of life, including the

freshwater eel The Anguillidae are a family of ray-finned fish that contains the freshwater eels. Eighteen of the 19 extant species and six subspecies in this family are in the genus ''Anguilla''. They are elongated fish with snake-like bodies, their long dorsa ...

and rare

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s, including the Woodville Karst Plain crayfish and the swimming Florida cave isopod '' Remasellus parvus'', that only exist in the

Wakulla-Leon Sinks cave system

Wakulla cave consists of a

dendritic Dendrite derives from the Greek word "dendron" meaning ( "tree-like"), and may refer to: Biology *Dendrite, a branched projection of a neuron *Dendrite (non-neuronal), branching projections of certain skin cells and immune cells Physical * Dendr ...

network of

conduit Conduit may refer to: Engineering systems * Conduit (fluid conveyance), a pipe suitable for carrying either open-channel or pressurized liquids * Electrical conduit, a protective cover, tube or piping system for electric cables * Conduit curre ...

s of which have been surveyed and mapped. The conduits are characterized as long tubes with diameter and depth being consistent ( depth); however, joining tubes can be divided by larger chambers of varying geometries. The largest conduit trends south from the spring/cave entrance for over . Four secondary conduits, including Leon Sinks, intersect the main conduit. Most of these secondary conduits have been fully explored. On Dec 15, 2007, the connection between the Wakulla cave system and Leon Sinks cave system was made by members of the

to create the Wakulla-Leon Sinks Cave System. This connection established the system as the longest underwater cave in the United States and the sixth largest in the world at a total of of surveyed passages.

Sinkholes

Many of the sinkholes in the Leon Sinks Geological Area are linked through underwater caves. The area includes both wet and dry sinkholes.

Wet sinkholes

* Big Dismal – 100 foot drop to the water which drops another 100 feet underwater with a cave entrance at 80 feet down.Big Dismal Sink
/ref> * Black * Duckweed * Fisher Creek * Hammock (aka Little Dismal) * Lost Stream * Magnolia * Natural Bridge

Dry sinkholes

* Back * Big Eight * Cone * Far * Field * Gopher Hole * Johnson * Palmetto * Tiny * Turner

Park and trails

The Leon Sinks offer three hiking trails to the different sinkholes in the park including an observation platform at Big Dismal Sink. The trails feature over 20 species of trees and 75 different plants along with wildlife ranging from

Carolina chickadee The Carolina chickadee (''Poecile carolinensis'') is a small passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. Taxonomy The Carolina chickadee is often placed in the genus ''Parus'' with most other tits, but mtDNA cytochrome ''b'' sequence data an ...

s to

gopher tortoises ''Gopherus'' is a genus of fossorial tortoises commonly referred to as gopher tortoises. The gopher tortoise is grouped with land tortoises that originated 60 million years ago, in North America. A genetic study has shown that their closest relat ...

. Trails: * Sinkhole Trail – 3.1 miles * Gumswamp Trail – 2.3 miles * Crossover Trail – 0.5 miles

References

External links

Wakulla Karst Plains Project

Leon Sinks Geological Area
- official site at

Apalachicola National Forest The Apalachicola National Forest is the largest U.S. National Forest in the state of Florida. It encompasses and is the only national forest located in the Florida Panhandle. The National Forest provides water and land-based outdoors activities ...

{{coord, 30.309273, -84.34644, region:US_type:landmark, display=title Caves of Florida Parks in Leon County, Florida Geography of Florida Apalachicola National Forest Landforms of Leon County, Florida