Alum Bluff towers over the Apalachicola River. The river has carved into it over geologic time, exposing millions of years of fossils. Each layer in the bluff tells stories – of rising and falling seas, megalodon sharks hunting whales, or a shallow, tropical ocean covering north Florida. Alum Bluff is also the western boundary of a biodiversity hotspot. Geology and biology converge in ecosystems unlike anything else in Florida, with plants and animals that are living fossils.
In this episode, we talk to three researchers who have extensively studied Alum Bluff and the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines region:
Harley Means, Florida's State Geologist and the Director of the Florida Geological Survey.
Roger Portell, Invertebrate Paleontology Collection Director at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
Bruce Means, former director of Tall Timbers Research Station and founder of the Coastal Plains Institute.
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