Mulberry Phosphate Museum - Mulberry, FL
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lazyCachers
N 27° 53.637 W 081° 58.404
17R E 404196 N 3085835
Located on Church St. just south of CR 60 in Mulberry, Florida.
Waymark Code: WM3Z8H
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 06/09/2008
Views: 84
Sharks' teeth, fossilized plant and animal life, and petrified shells and corals are routinely uncovered during mining operations. A large dragline bucket is adjacent to the parking lot behind a load of mined rock. Museum visitors are free to sift through the rock for fossils and sharks' teeth.
Phosphate is a primary ingredient in fertilizers, and Florida mines supply 75% of the phosphate used by America's farmers. The City of Mulberry has been known for years as the Phosphate Capital of the World.
Fifteen to thirty feet beneath peninsular Florida's sandy soil is a ten to twenty foot thick layer of phosphate rock. This part of the state was once under the sea. Over millions of years, billions of phosphate particles derived primarily from dead sea life settled into layers with sand and clay. These layers were eventually covered under sandy soil as the sea retreated.
Bone Valley is one of the world's most extensive mineable phosphate reserves, covering 1.2 million acres (1,977 square miles) in Polk, Hillsborough, Hardee, Manatee, and DeSoto Counties. Bone Valley takes its name from the fossilized remains of more than one hundred species that lived here millions of years ago. Sharks' teeth, fossilized plant and animal life, and petrified shells and corals are routinely uncovered during mining operations, and many are preserved and displayed in the Museum galleries, along with memorabilia and educational exhibits.
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