Short Beach (Oregon)

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Short Beach is a 1,000-meter stretch of beach on the northern Oregon Coast in the United States. It is not named for its length. Locals guess that both the beach and the creek that runs onto it—Short Creek, several miles in length—were named after an early resident of the area. Just south of Cape Meares State Park, and a bit north of Oceanside, the beach is hidden from the land except for a brief stretch of road which crosses the dam across Short Creek.

The shingle beach is noted for the availability of agates, [1] (the beach is sometimes erroneously called "Agate Beach") and jasper, sometimes called "coastal jade" or "beach jade". Agates and jasper become more available after heavy winter or spring storms, which often cause landslides or rockfalls, bringing fresh parent rock to the beach, which is primarily composed of rock. Other attractions are the mussels, which can be gathered from offshore rocks at low tides, and surf fishing.

Offshore, and partly onshore, are a number of rocks belonging to the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. In recent years, both these and the higher land around Short Beach have been a rough testimony to the rising sea level, as the higher surf brings increased collapse of rock faces and shoreward erosion along the bluff of over five feet in the last decade.

These rock collapses are turned in short order to the smooth, rounded rock familiar on beaches by the pounding surf that brought them down. The sand level has been dropping steadily ever since the first dams went up on the Columbia River and other area rivers, and continues to drop, leading to a local joke that "Short Beach" means it is getting very short on beach.

[edit] See also

List of National Wildlife Refuges

[edit] References

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