27, and is thought to run northwest beneath the Everglades, experts say. South Florida’s vein of Miami Oolite runs about as far north as Griffin Road at U.S. “We’re very fortunate in the Dade-Broward area that we have this type of rock right at the surface, just a few inches below the muck,” said Ray Knowles of Miramar Rock, which mines limestone in western Miramar. Dade limestone, dug from pits as large as a square mile, also is shipped by rail as far north as Jacksonville.
Rock from Broward mines is used largely to raise land for development. Only Pennsylvania and Texas topped Florida’s total rock mining production.Ĭowger said the two counties have the state’s largest deposits of Miami Oolite, the stone preferred for making asphalt and concrete and for building a foundation for Florida’s highways. The two counties produced 40 percent of the 74.4 million tons of lime rock dug out of Florida quarries last year. Piled in Joe Robbie Stadium, the limestone would form a column nearly 3,500 feet high. “If it wasn’t for limestone, most of South Florida wouldn’t even be there today.”ĭredges at Broward and Dade rock pits plucked nearly 30 millions tons of Miami Oolite - the gem of Florida’s limestone industry - from the ground in 1990, industry statistics show. “This is a resource that is needed in Florida to support our quality of life,” said Gene Cowger of the Florida Lime Rock and Aggregate Institute, a Tallahassee lobbying group. The billions of tons of limestone dredged from beneath the peninsula in the past eight decades have been used by developers to create dry land from swamp by filling low areas and raising them out of the flood plain. The rock mining industry literally formed the foundation on which South Florida is built.
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