10,000 Y O spear in FLA

[kbs2244]

From today’s news page.

“On Friday, dive teams from The Florida Aquarium and the University of Miami exploring and excavating Little Salt Spring in southern Sarasota County carried to the surface a spear that dates back about 10,000 years.”

This seems to be a group associated with the Texas A&M group that is offshore.
This is a spring that is inland of the current shoreline.
But there are some springs that “surface” (come above dirt level) offshore.
You have a spring emitting freshwater onto the bottom of the salt water Gulf of Mexico.
These are the ones that T A&M seems to be concentrating on.

Something interesting about this spring is the lack of oxygen in the water.
That would mean no fish.
But they still camped there.
Could they have been using the unique water for some kind of preservation use?

[dannan14]

What makes the site so unique is that the water entering the spring at about 250 feet beneath the surface has been underground for so long it contains no oxygen. There are no microbes or bacteria that normally destroy such relics.

10kya it would have been surface water, or am i missing your point?

[E.P. Grondine]

Uhhh...

One small item: The spear is more than 10,000 Y.O., as the spring would have been underwater by 10,750 BCE.

[kbs2244]

Yes, I agree that 10,000 yrs ago it would have been a ground level surface spring, as it is now. It is not one of the springs that has been submerged.

What I am assuming is that if the water today is so old that the OX has dispersed, then that would have been true 10,000 years ago..
The basic geology of this water table is the same now as then.

So why would camp around a "dead" spring?

Which brings up the question of the OX content of the other springs in the area.
They are all the result of the same geology.
Are the others also OX depleted?

I have heard stories about fisherman catching fresh water fish when well offshore in the Gulf.
In turns out they were in the vicinity of these submerged springs.
That would imply a survivable level of OX in the spring water.

[Barracuda]

But the springs do have fish in them.

I have been diving in many of them

The water coming out of the spring on the bottom might not have OX, but the surface water does support fish.

[kbs2244]

That is the kind of local information I was looking for.

Somehow we have enough OX to support life at the surface, but the bottom depths are OX free?
So, I guess, that means we have mini Black Seas in north FLA?

Anyway, they would camp there for the same reasons anyone would camp near a good supply of clean, fresh water.
Maybe even throw a spear at a fish and not hold tight enough to the retrieving string?

[Barracuda]

Yes!

The water coming out of the spring has been underground in the Floridan Aquaifer for thousands of years

Maybe somone dropped the spear off his surfboard.