Where are Florida's mountains?
Radio host Dave Elliot and I chat about books, newsletters, and how mountain runoff has shaped the Sunshine State
I started my day today being interviewed by talk radio host Dave Elliot (WGUF FM 98.9) of Naples where we chatted about my books, monthly newsletter, and favorite authors.
Turns out, he and I share a liking for science fiction, and as kids, we discovered, we both devoured Robert Heinlein and other writers of that generation.
Our main topic was my latest novel, Strange Timing, which won Book of the Year in the Royal Palm Literary Awards and also captured gold medals for science fiction and thriller novels.
Dave threw me a bit of a curveball when he asked about my newsletters and if there was one thing recently that stood out as particularly interesting while researching items for those reports. Luckily, I’d just been re-reading one of my Florida Weekly columns, and was able to share this passage commemorating, of all things:
End Mountaintop Removal Week
My first thought in discovering this was: Wow, maybe if that had been a thing earlier in Florida’s history our mountains wouldn’t be missing now.
So, I researched further to discover when it was that Florida’s Alps disappeared and if it was the result of rapacious miners like those who flattened the Appalachians, bulldozing for coal.
Turns out, no. Best anyone can tell, Florida has always been flat. Much of the time, it’s been underwater.
But we do have an odd relationship with the Appalachian Mountains after all.
Eons ago, the Smoky Mountains were like today’s Rocky Mountains—soaring, craggy and likely snow-capped. But over hundreds of millions of years, they were ground down by wind and rain.
According to the University of South Florida, as the Appalachians eroded, “sand and clay were deposited over Florida’s limestone layer. Much of the quartz sand covering the state today came from the rocks of that mountain chain.”
So, we may be the flattest state in the union, but some part of us was once a mountaintop. And miners weren’t to blame; it was Mother Nature.
It’s that sort of fascinating trivia that keeps me at my keyboard writing. I never know what I’ll discover.
What I discovered during my interview with Dave is how thorough he is. We’d only talked earlier this week about appearing on his show, and by this morning he was already two-thirds of the way through Strange Timing.
This guy does his homework.
Regarding the Appalachian origin for Florida’s quartz-y beaches, how all those eroded mountains flowed southward like so much runoff, Dave had this suggestion:
Instead of being known as the Sunshine State, maybe we should consider calling it the Runoff State.
What do you think?
Be Careful Out There Today
Not that any of us are superstitious or anything, but today is Friday the 13th.
Why is that supposed to be bad luck?
There is one theory (introduced for the first time here) that it was on Friday 13 that the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs struck the Earth.
One problem with that theory is that it is highly unlikely there were any calendars 66 million years ago as humans had yet to evolve. But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good superstition.
J.C. Bruce is a journalist and author of The Strange Files series of mysterious novels (available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, other online booksellers, and at selected libraries). He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and Florida. His latest novel, Strange Timing, was recently named Book of the Year in the Royal Palm Literary Awards where it also won Gold Medals in the Sci-Fi and Thriller categories. When he’s not writing, he’s in training for the International Underwater Ping-Pong Championships.
Sponsored by TROPIC PRESS, publisher of The Strange Files Series of Mysterious Adventures.
