Virginia Key

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Virginia Key is located in the U.S. state of Florida between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, an island in Miami -Dade County. The barrier island also makes up a part of Miami and has an area of 3.49 km ². With Downtown Miami and the island of Key Biscayne Key on the 1947 -built Rickenbacker Causeway is connected.

Geography

Virginia Key heard, although known as "Key", geologically speaking not to the Florida Keys, but is a barrier island that is made up of eroded sand from the Appalachian Mountains. This was transported by rivers to the Atlantic and then wandered through coastal currents southward along the coast. On the island surface there is no hard rock, but only layers of soft " Shelly sandstone ", which extends up to depths of 30 meters or more. In the 1850s Louis Agassiz noted that " could be observed not containing quartz sand more south of Cape Florida. " ( There are beaches in the Florida Keys primarily of finely pulverized shells. ) Geologists believe that the island around 2000 BC BC has formed shortly after the end of sea level rise. The sand was approached by the coastal currents began to pile up and formed new barrier islands off the southern coast of Florida.

Virginia Key expands in northeast -southwest direction. The island is about three miles long and 1 to 2.5 kilometers wide. North of the island, Fisher Iceland joins, in the south is Key Biscayne.

History

The Virginia Key Beach Park was founded in 1945 on the islet. In 1955 the Miami Seaquarium was opened on Virginia Key. Also located on the island of the Maritime and Science Technology ( MAST) Academy, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory ( AOML ).

Attractions

• Virginia Key Beach Park
• Miami Seaquarium