Rick Casares

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a 2,000-acre campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September... 1906. It is a "Public Ivy" university—a category of the top public universities in the United States. The University of Florida is ranked nineteenth overall among all public national universities in the current 2012 U.S. News & World Report rankings and consistently ranks within the top 100 universities worldwide. The University of Florida is an elected member of the Association of American Universities , an organization composed of sixty-one American and Canadian research universities. It is one of three "research flagship universities" within the State University System of Florida, as designated by the Florida Legislature. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
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Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and estuary along the Gulf of Mexico on the west central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay. "Tampa Bay" is not the name of any municipality. This misconception probably stems from the naming of... several professional sports franchises whose names represent the collective Tampa Bay Area, the hub of which is the city of Tampa, Florida. Approximately 6,000 years ago, Tampa Bay formed as a brackish drowned river valley type estuary with a wide mouth connecting it to the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to that time, it was a large fresh water lake, possibly fed by the Floridan Aquifer through natural springs. Though the exact process of the lake-to-bay transformation is not completely understood, the leading theory is that rising seas levels following the last ice age coupled with the formation of a massive sink hole near the current mouth of the bay created a connection between the lake and the gulf.
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