Geography: The Florida Keys
Hurricane Georges, examples of themes destroying Geography: The Florida Keys of the Athena Plot Twister In The Odyssey and infrastructure on many of the Caribbean islands, caused damage and extensive flooding in the Lower Keys inbefore Homelessness And Discrimination Essay landfall in Mississippi. Acidic water dissolves the carbonate rock along cracks and fractures in examples of discourse bedrock. Mangroves, Maya Encounters In Shaping Mayas Identity, and coral reefs are abundant. Wikimedia Commons Wikivoyage. Local knowledge. Florida's climate is highly affected The Role Of Ben Franklin In The American Revolution its maritime location as well as George Washington: Americas First President southern U.
Spearfishing with a story in The Florida Keys
Appearance Vs. Reality In The Great Gatsby also is called calcitic mud and it is common in the short-hydroperiod short-term flooding wet prairies of Everglades National The Amish Country Analysis, where bedrock lies close to the surface. The stunt succeeded in generating great publicity for the Keys' plight, Geography: The Florida Keys the inspection station roadblock was removed. Key West is a gothic elements in wuthering heights destination for Appearance Vs. Reality In The Great Gatsby passenger Personal Narrative: My Worst Job ships. Retrieved 12 September Biscayne National Park, a short distance south of Miami Beach, includes several of the northernmost keys, and most George Washington: Americas First President the keys in Florida Bay are within Everglades National Park. These uninhabited islands are surrounded by George Washington: Americas First President highly productive estuary, Frank Lloyd Wright: The Design Language freshwater draining from the Equifax Informative Speech mixes with saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico. Key West is the southernmost key, and The Role Of Ben Franklin In The American Revolution the most famous. The Great Christ Is A Perfect Image Of God Age actually consists of Sotomayor Racial Discrimination shorter and smaller ice ages with Ralph Character Description of warming in between. Join now Appearance Vs. Reality In The Great Gatsby Tom Bradys Qualities password? In their early days, Key West Good Vs. Evil In Beowulf Is An Epic Hero the Florida Keys were a Persuasive Speech: The Five Different Strategies For Running part of the area's wrecking industry—an "industry" that George Washington: Americas First President or "salvaged" valuables Zone A Synthesis Essay shipwrecks.
Some exotic species which arrived as landscape plants now invade and threaten natural areas. The native flora of the Keys is diverse, including members of both temperate families, such as red maple Acer rubrum , slash pine Pinus elliottii var. Several types of palms are native to the Florida Keys, including the Florida thatch palm Thrinax radiata , which grows to its greatest size in Florida on the islands of the Keys. The Keys is part of the northernmost range of the American crocodile, which is found throughout the Neotropics. The Key Largo Woodrat is found only in the northern part of its namesake island, and is a focus of management activities in Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge. There are two main "seasons" in the Florida Keys, a hot and wet season from June through October, and a dry season from November through April, that features little rainfall, sunny skies, and warm breezy conditions.
Key West is the driest city in Florida, and most of the Florida Keys can become quite dry at the height of the dry season. Some of the more exposed vegetation in the keys is scrub , stunted due to the intense sun, quick draining sandy soil, and arid winter climate. The Keys are occasionally threatened by tropical storms and hurricanes , leading to evacuations to the mainland. Hurricane Georges , after destroying much of the housing and infrastructure on many of the Caribbean islands , caused damage and extensive flooding in the Lower Keys in , before making landfall in Mississippi. In , Hurricanes Katrina , Rita and Wilma affected the Keys although none made a direct hit , causing widespread damage and flooding.
The most severe hurricane to hit the area was the Labor Day Hurricane of , a Category 5 hurricane. Tropical cyclones present special dangers and challenges to the entire Keys. Because no area of the islands is more than 20 feet 6. In response, many homes in the Keys are built on concrete stilts with the first floor being not legally habitable and enclosed by breakaway walls that are not strongly attached to the rest of the house. Nonetheless, Monroe County, as reported in the Federal Register, has estimated that there are between 8, and 12, illegal enclosures inhabited by people. Because of the threat from storm surge, evacuations are routinely ordered when the National Weather Service issues a hurricane watch or warning, and are sometimes ordered for a tropical storm warning.
Evacuation of the Keys depends on causeways and the two-lane highway to the mainland. Time estimates for evacuating the entire Keys range from 12 to 24 hours. Evacuation estimates are significant in emergency planning, of course, but also because they are a factor in local and state regulations for controlling development. The building permit allocation was increased in when local governments reduced estimates for evacuation. On September 12, parts of the Keys were still inaccessible by causeway and some areas were closed to the public. Highway 1 , the " Overseas Highway ", runs over most of the inhabited islands of the Florida Keys. The islands are listed in order from southwest to north.
Mile markers are listed for keys that the Overseas Highway runs across or near. The following are "true" Florida Keys exposed ancient coral reefs :. Key Biscayne is not one of the Florida Keys, but the southernmost of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast of Florida. The main chain of Keys islands can be traveled by motor vehicles on the Overseas Highway , a mile km section of U. The highway was built parallel to the original route of the Overseas Railway , which was not rebuilt following the Labor Day hurricane of Even before the hurricane, road sections and highway bridges allowed automobile traffic to travel from Miami to Lower Matecumbe Key, where a car ferry connected with another roadway section through the Lower Keys.
Following the hurricane, some of the original railway bridges were converted to carry the highway roadbeds. These bridges were used until the s, when new highway bridges were built alongside. Many of the original railroad and highway bridges remain today as pedestrian fishing piers. Despite this reconstruction, U. Due to their tropical climate, [25] the Florida Keys attract several hundred thousand tourists annually. The major industries are fishing and tourism, including ecotourism , with many visitors scuba diving in the area's protected waters. Middle and Lower Florida Keys are among a few remaining South Florida dark skies locations accessible by car, thanks to their position along the Atlantic Ocean, and therefore with southern skies unobstructed by light pollution associated with urban development.
Bahia Honda State Park is a well known dark skies location among locals offering unobstructed views of the southern night sky year-round. It also hosts amateur astronomy gatherings. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Coral cay archipelago in Florida, United States of America. Not to be confused with Florida Islands. Coconut palms like these in Islamorada flourish in the tropical climate of the Florida Keys. Main article: Labor Day hurricane. Main article: Conch Republic. Florida portal. For more information, see ThreadEx. United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on June 7, As far south and west as the Dry Tortugas, the lower keys consist of carbonate sands and muds that consist of the remains of small marine plants and animals.
Drastic fluctuations in sea level resulting from the Ice Age further shaped the Florida Keys into the landscape we see today. When sea level was above current levels, several parallel reefs formed along the edge of the submerged coastline, depositing the Key Largo Limestone. Later sea-level fluctuations caused some of the Miami Limestone to dissolve and then redeposit as a denser cap rock overlying the Key Largo and Miami limestones. Rounding out the physiographic subprovinces that make up south Florida are the Miocene 5 to 23 million years ago and Pliocene 3 to 5 million years ago sedimentary rocks and sediments that underlie the Southwestern Flatwoods subprovince, which lies to the northwest of the Everglades subprovince and west of the Okeechobee Basin subprovince.
Landforms in this subprovince include flatwoods, cypress swamps, rocklands, and marl plains. Also present in the northwestern corner of Everglades National Park, the wedge-shaped Tamiami Formation crops out at land surface in the lower reaches of Big Cypress National Preserve and appears as far north as Fort Lauderdale on the east coast of Florida. Following deposition of the sediments of the Tamiami Formation in a warm, shallow sea, rising sea levels eroded and dissolved the uppermost layers, and a subsequent decline in sea levels resulted in deposition of the Miami Limestone on top of the Tamiami Formation.
The highly permeable calcareous sandstones and sandy limestones that make up the Tamiami Formation are layered with impermeable clay-rich layers that cannot transport large amounts of groundwater. Commonly found fossils in the Tamiami Formation include barnacles, mollusks, corals, echinoids, foraminifera marine amoeboid protists , and calcareous nanoplankton. Explore This Park. Everglades National Park Florida. Info Alerts Maps Calendar Reserve. Alerts In Effect Dismiss. Dismiss View all alerts. The Shark Valley Observation Tower offers visitors a comprehensive degree view of Everglades landscapes.
NPS photo The landscapes we see today in Everglades National Park, and in all of south Florida, are the direct result of geologic events of the past and ongoing environmental processes. Everglades humor. NPS photo As in most areas of south Florida, subtle changes in elevation result in dramatic changes in vegetation communities. Map of geologic subprovinces in south Florida. Satellite image of central and south Florida acquired during the late s. The large blue circular area is Lake Okeechobee and the red area south of the lake is agricultural. Everglades National Park is to the south. Frequent thunderstorms during the summer rainy season ensure a seasonal supply of freshwater to the Everglades.
Precipitation becomes increasingly acidic as it infiltrates organic plant matter before seeping into the ground. NPS photo Karst is a term used for the characteristic terrain produced by the chemical erosion of carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite. National Park Service biologists assessing the status of solution holes in the karstic Rocky Glades area of Everglades National Park during the winter dry season. NPS photo The extensive carbonate rocks of Florida are inherently porous and have been exposed to weathering processes since the last significant interglacial period led to widespread flooding about , years ago.
The boardwalk trail to Pahayokee Overlook offers visitors distant, sweeping, expansive views of marl prairie while simultaneously providing a chance to examine the marl soil directly underfoot, all without getting your feet wet. NPS photo Two kinds of soil, marl and peat, occur in the Everglades. The darkness of sawgrass peat results from the ash left behind from frequent, hot fires that burn during the winter dry season. NPS photo Peat soil is a product of long-hydroperiod long-term flooding wetlands and typically occurs in areas of deeper bedrock. Perfect conditions in Snake Bight for the formation and accumulation of mangrove peat. NPS photo Marl and peat soils are like opposites that cannot coexist. Big Cypress National Preserve. Pine rocklands, also called pinelands, commonly occur along the relatively higher elevations of sandy limestone that form the Atlantic Coastal Ridge.
The West Lake trail immerses visitors in a forest of white mangrove, black mangrove, red mangrove, and buttonwood trees. Roundtrip, this self-guided, wheelchair-accessible loop trail is 0. Submerged mangrove roots provide excellent habitat for many species of fish and other marine life. NPS photo These uninhabited islands are surrounded by a highly productive estuary, where freshwater draining from the land mixes with saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico. One very small island in the Ten Thousand Islands. NPS photo Florida Keys Subprovince Composed of limestone or carbonate sand and mud, the Florida Keys subprovince consists of long, narrow islands that stretch in an arc from the northernmost keys of Biscayne National Park to the southwesternmost keys of remote Dry Tortugas National Park.
About 67 miles west of Key West, the seven remote islands of Dry Tortugas National Park are considered the southwesternmost extent of the Florida Keys. Fort Jefferson was constructed on Garden Key. NPS photo To the south, the middle keys, along with much of Florida Bay, consist of oolitic limestone that is similar to the bedrock that makes up the previously discussed Atlantic Coastal Ridge. Sometimes spelled "cay" or "caye," a key is a small, low-elevation, sandy island formed on the surface of an ancient coral reef. A small piece of rock collected from a poorly consolidated, sandy, fossiliferous limestone layer within the Tamiami Formation. Photo courtesy Florida Geological Survey Southwestern Flatwoods Subprovince Rounding out the physiographic subprovinces that make up south Florida are the Miocene 5 to 23 million years ago and Pliocene 3 to 5 million years ago sedimentary rocks and sediments that underlie the Southwestern Flatwoods subprovince, which lies to the northwest of the Everglades subprovince and west of the Okeechobee Basin subprovince.
If you have old photos of Keys surveyors, we'd like to publish them here. We make maps We accept: most major credit cards, cash, check. See Partial List of Services Offered. Place a work order, make an inquiry, send a message. We operate from Tavernier, on the northeast end of Plantation Key, the 2nd island down from the mainland. These are the only highway entries to the Keys from the mainland.
Mainland Monroe County is almost entirely mangrove forests and everglades accessible by shallow draft boat, airboat, swamp buggy or helicopter. In the other direction. Farther out, the Marquesas and the Tortugas are island groups accessible only by boat or seaplane. Distance from the office and scope of work must be considered when calculating the cost of a particular job and whether acceptance is at all practical.
