Jackson County (Florida Caverns State Park)

Jackson County, in Florida's panhandle near Marianna, is fossil-rich country — the PaleoBioDB database lists roughly 190 fossil localities within the county, and the standout documented site is Florida Caverns State Park, the only Florida state park with air-filled caves open to the public.[1][2] The park's exposed Ocala Limestone (Upper Eocene), capped by the Bumpnose and Marianna limestones (Lower Oligocene), contains corals, bryozoans, brachiopods, nautilus (Aturia), echinoids, and foraminifera, and nodular chert is documented in area quarries too.[2][3] The geology here is genuinely rich — but Florida state park rules ban collecting anything without a permit, which makes this a look-and-learn destination rather than a collecting one, at least at the park itself.

Florida Caverns State Park is near Marianna, the Jackson County seat, in Florida's panhandle. The broader panhandle rockhounding area also includes old mines along the Georgia border and quarries elsewhere in Jackson County.[1]

Not permitted at Florida Caverns State Park — see "Know before you go." For the county's other documented chert-bearing quarries and stream banks, access is UNVERIFIED; no specific site name, owner, or public-access status was confirmed in this pass.

Florida state park rules prohibit collecting natural objects — plants, animals, and minerals, including fossils — within state park boundaries without express permission from the Florida Park Service, granted only for DEP-permitted research or academic study.[3] This applies directly to Florida Caverns State Park. No fossil collecting is allowed inside the boundaries of any Florida state park or national wildlife refuge.[3] Other Jackson County sites — quarries, stream banks near the Washington County line — are documented as fossil- and chert-bearing generally, but their land ownership and access status were not independently confirmed this session.