Apalachee Bay

Apalachee Bay is a bay in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico occupying an indentation of the Florida coast to the west of where the Florida peninsula joins the United States mainland. It is bordered by Taylor, Jefferson, Wakulla, and Franklin counties. The Aucilla, Econfina, St. Marks, and Ochlockonee rivers drain into the bay. Most of the bay's coast is the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. The mouth of the Bay stretches from Lighthouse Point on Saint Marks Island, in Wakulla County south of Bald Point State Park, to Rock Island in Taylor County.

Apalachee Bay is named for the Apalachee people which lived between the Aucilla and Ochlockonee rivers until early in the 18th century. The St. Marks River below where the Wakulla River joins it was at one time known as the Apalachee River. The meaning of "Apalachee" was not recorded, but in the Choctaw language, which is believed to be closely related to the Apalachee language, Apelachi means 'help' or 'helper', and Apelichi means 'the place in which to rule, preside, or govern in'.

Most of the shoreline of Apalachee Bay is part of the Big Bend Coast, a drowned karst region, covered with salt marsh and mangrove forests. The western end of the bay, south of the mouth of the Ochlockonee River, is bordered by a sand beach at the eastern end of St. James Island, site of Bald Point State Park. There are barrier islands west of the Ochlockonee River, but there are no barrier islands elsewhere around the bay. The bay includes freshwater springs, and oyster reefs. The coast of Apalachee Bay has little or no sand or mud. The karst topography has produced an irregular, frequently exposed, bedrock surface. The lack of sand has been a feature of the Apalachee Bay coast since at least the Pleistocene. Sediment of Holocene origin is generally limited to salt marshes and the nearshore zone, and is redistributed by tidal action and storm events. The coast of Apalachee Bay is on the Gulf Coastal Lowlands of Florida, which has recently exposed ocean-smoothed terraces with Tertiary limestone at or just below the surface. The presence of a high water table has produced a karst landscape. The limestone hosts the

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