The Florida Reef is estimated to be between 5,000 and 7,000 years old. One of the world’s three most extensive coral reef systems in the world, the Florida Reef, comes in third (relative to size) behind those growing off the coasts of Australia and Belize.The barrier reef system is not one continuous string of corals, but a series of thousands of individual reefs that begin to rise from the Atlantic floor near Stuart, located some 100 miles north of Miami, and trails off at the approximate locale of the Dry Tortugas some 70 miles southwest of Key West.
