Lissa Brewer: Scratchpad: The Monthly Stack, Castle Rock

Lissa Brewer, The Daily Astorian, Ore.
·1 min read

Jul. 27—For some shorebird colonies nesting among the North Coast's churning seas, home is a castle in the Pacific. It's one admired by beachcombers, gardeners and travelers, named so for its turret-like outline as viewed from the shore.

Sitting just over a half mile offshore from Arch Cape, Castle Rock is home to flocks of brown pelicans, common murres, western gulls and many other migratory birds. Like more than 1,800 of its sister monoliths up and down the Oregon Coast, the sea stack is part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, a series of rocks, reefs and headlands stretching from Tillamook Head to the Oregon-California border.

This castle of the sea was formed by a lava flow known as the Columbia River flood basalts, a finding that dates the rock to an age of about 15 million years. Its presence indicates a series of prehistoric eruptions and ancient shorelines. Formed by soft sediments spread to the coast by the Columbia River, it remains a beacon among today's coastal castles.