Coquina, Spanish for “little shell,” is a rock made of shells and quartz sand that formed naturally hundreds of thousands of years ago. Along Florida’s east coast, the coquina deposit called the Anastasia Formation extends from just north of St. Augustine to southern Palm Beach County, with its longest exposure in Flagler County, where Washington Oaks Gardens State Park offers a notable view of it as well as tidal pools with anemones, starfish, small crabs, and living coquina clams burrowing in the surf. The Spanish quarried coquina on Anastasia Island as early as 1598 and used it to build Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida’s oldest structure, built between 1672 and 1695; Fort Matanzas was also made of coquina. Because the rock is relatively soft and easy to quarry, the Lehigh Cement Plant mined it in the 1950’s and 1960’s for cement, and it is also used decoratively in local parks. More than 1000 years ago, Native Americans gathered coquina clams in baskets, cooked and ate them, and left prehistoric middens containing millions of discarded shells. Coquina clams provide little food value, with about 300 clams yielding only 100 grams of meat, and 100 grams of coquina meat providing 54 calories, 8.6 grams of protein, 1.0 gram of fat, and 2.0 grams of carbohydrates.