Submarine karst belt rimming the continental slope in the Straits of Florida

Nine submarine sinkholes have been surveyed and mapped with side-looking so nar and echo-sounder profiles in the Straits of Florida. These structures a re irregularly distributed across the surface of the South Florida Margin, forming a discontinuous belt along the edge of the slope. The sinkholes occ ur in water depths too great to have ever been exposed above sea level, and some are several times larger than any known subaerial sinkholes in North America. Because most karst morphologies are the product of groundwater cir culation, the distribution of submarine sinkholes in the Florida Straits ma y be directly related to the paleohydrology of the South Florida Platform.