The Florida Geological Survey Digital Collection includes historic resources from the Florida Geological Survey (FGS). FGS is an Office which reports directly to the Deputy Secretary for Regulatory Programs in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The mission of the FGS is to collect, interpret, disseminate, store and maintain geologic data, thereby contributing to the responsible use and understanding of Florida’s natural resources, and to conserve the State of Florida’s oil and gas resources and minimize environmental impacts from exploration and production operations.

Historic resources from the Florida Geological Survey Digital Collection includes historic FGS:

  • Annual Reports
    • Annual Reports (AR) record the results of geologic investigations and include administrative information of the Florida Geological Survey, including budget, staff lists, and facilities. Annual Reports ceased to be published in 1933.
  • Biennial Reports
    • Biennial Reports (BR) record the administrative workings of the Florida Geological Survey including descriptions of the budget, programs and personnel. Biennial Reports began in 1934 upon termination of the AR series. The BR series was not published from 1960 through 1986.
  • Bulletins
    • Bulletins (B) are conprehensive reports on geologic or related studies. They generally cover a broad subject area and/or geographic location.
  • Information circulars
    • Information Circulars (IC) are reports of a preliminary or interim nature, or update reports on continuing investigations. They also provide large amounts of data.
  • Leaflets
    • Leaflets are short publications related to areas of general, educational, public interest.
  • Map Series
    • Map Series (MS) contain geologic and other related data presented in graphic formats including maps, cross sections, and graphs, and generally include accompanying text.
  • Open File Map Series
    • The Open File Map Series (OFMS) presents interpreted geologic and related information and provides for the rapid reporting of ongoing investigations and interim data. These maps are printed on demand. All Florida county geologic maps may be found on FGS's site.
  • Open File Reports
    • Open File Reports (OFR) present the results of geologic investigatons in an informal format and may serve as interim reports of ongoing projects.
  • Posters
  • Reports of Investigations
    • Reports of Investigations (RI) are comprehensive reports on geology and related topics, and are generally narrow in topical scope or in geographic area.
  • Special Publications
    • Special Publications (SP) contain geologic and related information of significant interest to the scientific community and the general public. They may include topical compiltions from conferences or symposiums.
  • Video Series
    • Florida geoscience education and outreach series.

For a list of all publications, historic through current, see the FGS website.

Florida Geological Survey Fossil Collection in the Florida Museum of Natural History

The Florida Geological Survey fossil vertebrate collection (FGS) was started during the 1910s and was originally housed in Tallahassee. Under the direction of E. H. Sellards, Herman Gunter, and S. J. Olsen, the FGS collection was the primary source of fossil vertebrate descriptions from Florida until the early 1960s. World-renown paleontologists such as George G. Simpson, Edwin H. Colbert, and Henry F. Osborn wrote scientific papers about specimens in the FGS collection in addition to Sellards and Olsen. In 1976 the entire FGS fossil vertebrate collection was transferred to the Florida Museum of Natural History with support from a National Science Foundation grant. The UF/FGS collection is composed of about 22,000 specimens assigned to about 10,000 catalogue numbers, and almost all of them were collected in Florida. The majority of specimens in the UF/FGS collection are mammals, followed by reptiles, birds, and a relatively small number of amphibians and fish. Although there are some sites that are unique to the UF/FGS collection, many of the sites overlap with holdings in the main UF and UF/PB collections. The major strengths of the UF/FGS collection are historically important samples from the early Miocene Thomas Farm locality, the middle Miocene and early Pliocene deposits of the Bone Valley Region, Polk County, and from the late Pleistocene Vero locality, Indian River County. Researchers using the UF/FGS database should be aware that when the catalogue data for the FGS collection was first transferred from the original file cards to a computerized database in the late 1980s, relatively little effort was made to correct or improve entries. The nature of specimen was not indicated on many of the cards, locality information was sometimes vague, and many employed taxonomic names that are no longer in use. While some corrections have subsequently been made to this database, limitations of time and resources have prevented an exhaustive clean-up. Also, when Sellards left Florida for Texas in the 1920s, he transferred some, but not all, of the holotypes in the FGS collection that he had named to the USNM collection, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Related Sites

United States Geological Survey

Water Management Districts of Florida

For information about the Florida Geological Survey:


Florida Geological Survey
3000  Commonwealth Blvd., Ste. 1
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Phone: (850) 617-0300  Fax: (850) 617-0341
 

Acknowledging or Crediting the Florida Geological Survey As Creative Entity or Information Source

The Florida Geological Survey is providing many of its publications (State documents) for the purpose of digitization and Internet distribution. If you cite or use portions of these electronic documents, which the Florida Geological Survey (an office of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection) is making available to the public with the kind assistance of the University of Florida’s Digital Library Center, we ask that you acknowledge or credit the Florida Geological Survey as the information source:

i.e. “Courtesy of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Florida Geological Survey”

Further, since Florida Geological Survey publications were developed using public funds, no proprietary rights may be attached to FGS publications wholly or in part, nor may FGS publications be sold to the U.S. Government or the Florida State Government as part of any procurement of products or services. Our publications are disseminated to citizens “as is" for general public information purposes; many of them reflect the state of knowledge at the time of their publication and they may or may not have been updated by more recent publications. Our electronic documents should not be altered or manipulated (largely or in part) and then republished or reposted on websites for commercial resale.

FGS Publications Committee
January, 2016