Treasures After Oregon Coast Storms: Old Glass Floats, Living Critters, Bedrock, Fossils, Agates

Published 02/13/23 at 4:29 AM
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Oregon Coast) – Once the storms are over, after the deluge of crazed waves and surf advisories, once things calm down: this is a great time to hit the beaches of the Oregon coast. (Agate Beach, photo Oregon Coast Beach Connection)

A huge variety of possibilities can make for treasures in the sands, like really old glass floats, fossils, agates, weird living creatures and beaches that look different. There's a also a small update on finds happening now. Get ready to get out here.

Bedrock Exposed. This year has not been the biggest for erosional waves, but there have been some wondrous discoveries. Seal Rock is among them: see the amazing photo here that went viral on Oregon Coast Beach Connection.

Above: concretion rarities like this show sometimes at Fogarty Beach, Depoe Bay (photo Oregon Coast Beach Connection)

Don't pass up Newport's Moolack Beach, where the 18-million-year-old sandstone often shows. You can see massive grooves where the sand that's normally there has gouged it. You can see plenty of fossils embedded in this rock as well.

Photo courtesy Manuela Durson - see Manuela Durson Fine Arts for more

Sunset Bay near Coos Bay is often full of interesting revelations this time of year, including ghost forests – but more.

Some of your favorite beaches may look much different than before.

Bedrock often means fossils abound, like at Newport. You can't yank them out of rock: that's illegal. If bedrock is showing, there's a good chance they'll be lying around. Moolack is known for that.

Real Japanese Glass Floats. They are seen rarely on the Oregon coast anymore, but some of the insider wisdom about this is that they can go show up from January through March – just a bit more often than other times. Also see Lincoln City's Antique Week: Oregon Coast Tradition with 100 Japanese Glass Floats | Washington Coast's Westport Begins Dropping Real Japanese Glass Floats For 2023

D River, Lincoln City, during one wowing summer for agates

Agates. Look for gravel beds after storms, as these are where the tiny gems are found. Lincoln City is good, but all agate beds come and go quickly. Other places to check for such agate proliferation include Ona Beach (near Waldport), Newport's Moolack and Beverly Beaches, Bandon (a pretty wide stretch), just north of Pacific City (including Tierra Del Mar), Oceanside, Rockaway Beach, Manzanita, the stretch between Arch Cape and Cannon Beach that includes Arcadia and Hug Point.

Ocean Burps. Look for large brown patches on the sands, anywhere on wide open beaches of the coastline (like Coos Bay's Horsfall or Seaside). Called ocean burps, they may look like just a stretch of pieces of wood, but interesting things can be found there. (Photo Seaside Aquarium / Tiffany Boothe)

As Keith Chandler, manager of Seaside Aquarium told Oregon Coast Beach Connection years ago: “If you see a patch of dark brown on the beach, go look through it because you’ll find some cool stuff.”

Seaside Aquarium

Squid egg casings, live squid eggs, different crabs than you're used to seeing, cockleshells: it's a diverse potpourri always.

CoastWatch has scores of people keeping an eye on beaches, and their reports sometimes show new points of interest in winter.

According to recent observations by CoastWatch:

Gleneden Beach. Some of the cliffs at Gleneden Beach are getting torn up. You can see large chunks of rock and sand that came from cliff below, spread out in an impressive mess.

Beware of Logs. There are lots of massive logs washed up on the Oregon coast, and if they're the surf zone stay completely clear of them. These can crush you as it takes a minimal amount of water to move them.

CoastWatch reported quite a few recently washed up on the path to Nadonna Beach at Rockaway Beach. Logs like this that are far from the surf are a good place to go treasure hunting.

Myers Creek Access Near Gold Beach. Lower sand levels there are showing more goodies, like exposed rocks.

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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