The soil here ranges from sand to marl to rich, decomposed leaf litter. Natural habitats of the Keys are upland forests, inland wetlands and shoreline zones. The Lower Keys are composed of sandy-type accumulations of limestone grains produced by plants and marine organisms. The Upper Keys islands are remnants of large coral reefs, which became fossilized and exposed as sea level declined. The climate and environment are closer to that of the Caribbean than the rest of Florida, though unlike these volcanic islands, plants and animals are what built the Keys. The Florida Keys are located in the subtropics between 24 and 25 degrees latitude north.
Some of the coastline in the Florida Keys This reef formed the Key Largo limestone that you see on the surface of the Keys from Soldier Key to Big Pine Key. A reef consisting of several parallel lines formed along the edge of the submerged Florida plateau and stretched from the Miami area to what is now the Dry Tortugas. At this time, all of the southern portion of Florida was covered by a shallow sea. Starting approximately 130,000 years ago, the sea levels raised to around 25 feet or 7.5 m. Barrier islands located further north, are built up of sand and include Key Biscayne and other islands. To the north of Elliott Key are several small "transitional" keys, composed of sand built up around small areas of exposed ancient reef. Elliott Key, which is the northernmost of the true Florida Keys, is in Biscayne National Park. The Florida Keys are actually made up of exposed portions of an ancient coral reef, with very little sand. The southern tip of Key West is located just 90 miles or 145 km from Cuba. They extend from the southeastern Florida peninsula about 15 miles south of Miami, and run south-southwest gradually curving west to Key West and out to the uninhabited Dry Tortugas. There are over 800 charted islands with about 30 of them inhabited. The Keys lie along the Florida Straits, dividing the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the west. The Florida Keys are an archipelago of about 1700 islands in the farthest southeast portion of the United States.
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