Paradise Springs
4040 Southeast 84th Lane Road
Ocala, Florida 34480
(352) 368-5746
Diving Instruction · Trips · Air Fills · Equipment
|
Paradise Springs 4040 Southeast 84th Lane Road Ocala, Florida 34480 (352) 368-5746 Diving Instruction · Trips · Air Fills · Equipment
|
|
"Water of Timeless Quality and Clarity can only come from Paradise"
 |
 |
 |
 |
Paradise Spring is a beautiful deep BLUE CARST window spring that comes from very deep pristine spring flows within the Floridian Aquifer.
The history of Paradise Springs is very diverse. Paradise Springs in the past has been used to refresh watermelon crops by early Black farmers living in the Santo's community, a beautiful place for local residents to swim and cool off on a hot summers day, to the present use as a world renowned SCUBA Diving destination used by divers from around the world.
Paradise Springs sits in the middle of Florida's dynamic carst topography. This type of environment is found in only a few places in the world. Over millions of years a unique mix of moving water and limestone has carved a complex network of windowed caverns, caves, disappearing rivers, springs, collapsing sinks and beautiful aquifers just below the surface.
Paradise springs just south of Ocala is one of these rare places that can supply millions of gallons of fresh drinking water weekly.
The carbonate-rock aquifers that underlie Florida and adjacent states are called platform carbonates with high porosity as well as large solution openings.
These solution openings in the carbonate rocks range from small tubular openings, jagged joints and to caverns that may be hundreds of feet wide and thousands of yards long. Where they are saturated, carbonate rocks with well-connected networks of solution openings yield large amounts of water to wells that penetrate the openings.
Finally Paradise may have a secret that few people know about. In addition to the trusty Floridian Aquifer there is a steady secondary source of water at noticeably different temperatures coming from several fissures near the top of the cavernous opening. Could this be the illusive Hawthorne Aquifer known in the western Marion County Florida? This upper Florida Aquifer is famous for its torturous faults, fractures, sinkholes and limestone caverns. Fore millions of years these upper aquifer areas have provided additional routes for water to move in it's subsurface pathway.
|
|
FROM THE NORTH Take I-75 south to exit 69 (SR 40). Go east 3 miles to SR 441 (Pine Ave.) and turn right. Follow about 8 miles to where the road splits (trees in the center). Take the first U-turn after the road comes together. Now heading north on 441, where the road starts to split you will see a black mailbox with a diver's flag painted on it and a dirt road on the right. Follow the dirt road 1/2 mile to Paradise Springs. FROM THE SOUTH Take I-75 north to exit 67 (SR 40) and proceed approximately 7 miles. Turn left on SR 441 and go 5 miles to where the road splits (trees in the center). 50 feet before the split you will see a black mailbox with a diver's flag painted on it and a dirt road on the right. Follow the dirt road 1/2 mile to Paradise Springs. |
Additional information and links:
