POTD: Shore Acres #1

Shore Acres #1
Cape Arago, Oregon
2023

I mentioned a few days ago about the surprise of finding a formal botanical gardens that we were not aware of along the rugged coast of Oregon. Even more surprising was the wild area of coast across the parking lot from the gardens. This area, like the botanical gardens, is part of what is known as Shore Acres and is comprised of sedimentary rock layers rather than the more usual volcanic formations found on most of the Oregon coast. The sandstone, shale and other types of sedimentary rock here came from a river delta that formed in ancient times and was gradually (and sometimes not so gradually) lifted by seismic activity. Then wind and salt water proceeded to erode the rock, leaving some pretty amazing formations that rival anything I’ve seen in the American southwest (not in overall expanse or size even, but in terms of kinds of shapes that were formed). It’s a little hard to determine the scale of these rock features, especially if you’ve looked at too many of my Little Landscape series of images, but the feature in the foreground of this photo stands about 6′ high at its pointy end.