The Indian River Lagoon, an evolution in photos.

This page is intended an extension of my "History of the Indian River Lagoon" page.

The evolution and phases of the Indian River Lagoon can be studied & understood by using old photographs, charts and modern satellite pictures of underwater topography which will easily demonstrate the lagoon evolution.

Specifically "Dummit Creek" on north Merritt Island has the best examples of carving out the lagoon during the past five to seven thousand years of the lagoon and even some ghost stream relics from the Ice age.

Where is Dummit Creek & Dummit Cove? In the NASA credit photo above, I circled the creek on the Indian River. Oh yes, and the the two rockets in the photo? Launch Pad39A has a SpaceX Falcon and Pad 39B is NASA's SLS, Artemis-1.

Mosquito Lagoon in the background. But Dummit Creek is in far distance at the top of the photo.

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1952 platt book of Dummit Cove.

In the photo is Haulover Canal (top of page) & Dummit Cove (Bottom of page) and the old Haulover canal that emptied into Dummit Cove.

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Briefly, if you have not seen the other pages on the Indian River Lagoon: The Indian River Lagoon System is composed of three lagoons and tributaries stretching 156 miles from Ponce de Le León Inlet in Volusia Country Florida, south to Jupiter Inlet in Palm Beach County Florida.

The lagoons are the Banana River, Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River.

For most of the time humans have lived in the lagoon area, the lagoon did not exist or existed only as a series of small streams.

My QCC expedition Kayak is my exploration tool for the Lagoon System.

The wide shallow water expanse of the lagoon is to be explained in that during the ice ages, this was grasslands or forest.

Black & white photo above is one representation of the river bottom and ancient stream beads

Photo above is another representation of the river bottom and ancient stream beads

The color photo above (from a fishing book) shows another ghost stream I outlined in color.

Basically the red line at the bottom is the rain or ground water eroded stream channel from Dummit creek.

While the double red/blue lines may indicate the tidal flow of the salt water flooding of the lagoon 5-7000 years ago.

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Ghost streams of Dummit Creek.

The green edge is the current shoreline.

The Blue represents stage when the Indian River was dry but the Ice age had ended and there was increased rainfall.

The blue is probably a seasonal creek creek that attracted both animals and humans.

Windover Farm People would have lived along the blue lines.

The Orange represents the oldest and smallest stream, possibly during the Ice age when the Atlantic was 30 miles to the east.

Dummit Creek & the underwater erosion zone of the ancient water flow.

Ghost streams of Dummit Creek.

The Blue represents stage when the Indian River was dry and the blue is a creek that attracted both animals and humans.

The Orange represents the oldest and smallest stream, possibly during the Ice age when the Atlantic was 30 miles to the east.

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The above photos are the reason why the Dummit Cove area is the best photographic record of a time when the lagoon did not exist and only feeder streams like Crane Creek or Dummit creek fed water into the prairies that existed during the dry seasons of the Ice Age and would one day become the Indian River Lagoon System.

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Sykes Creek along Merritt Island also has other great underwater photos of Ice Age Streams and the Mosquito Lagoon underwater landscape still shows when the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean finally flooded the lagoon.

Couple of notes

Dummit Creek/Black Point area has the oldest human habitation site on Kennedy Space Center.

Pine Island/Sam's creek has the most recent mammoth fossils discovered.

Sikes Creek remains the King of Paleo spear points discovered around the space center.

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Eye witness account of the formation/Flooding of the Lagoon.

(From Chapter One of my Florida history book, Freedom's Quest)

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"Indian River evolution" page.