Depoe Bay is a community situated on a small natural embayment of the same name, forming the estuary for Depoe Creek, located about 11 miles (18 km) south-southwest of Lincoln City and 12 miles (19 km) north of Newport, Oregon. The harbor, spanning only 6 acres (2.4 ha), is connected to the sea by a narrow but navigable chasm. Depoe Bay was named after Charles “Charley” DePoe, a member of the Tututni tribe, a historic Native American group that traditionally lived along the Rogue River and its tributaries, between the Coquille and Chetco rivers. DePoe received the land in 1894 as part of the Dawes Act of 1887. His name may have originally been spelled “Depot.”
The coastal rocks underlying the town and highway consist of volcanic basalts and sandstone. Depoe Bay Basalt is exposed along the shore and forms the wall separating the inner harbor from the bay. This rock is pillow basalt breccia, formed in the middle Miocene when hot lava suddenly chilled upon contact with sea water. The very small and secure inner harbor is composed of sandstone from the Astoria Formation, eroded by North and South Depoe Creeks. Much of the basin’s shaping occurred during the most recent Wisconsin glacial period, when sea levels were several hundred feet (about 61 m) lower. At that time, the passage through the wall was a gorge through which the ancestral Depoe Creek flowed.
Seawater erosion over time has created blowholes, common features on many volcanic islands and along the Oregon coast. A blowhole, or marine geyser, forms as sea caves erode and undercut the overlying rock. Vertical shafts can develop when the roof of the sea cave erodes or collapses, exposing the surface to air and creating a vent. The hydraulic compression of seawater entering the sea cave is released through this vent, resulting in a marine geyser. The geometry of the cave and blowhole, along with tide levels and swell conditions, determine the geyser’s height and volume. U.S. Highway 101, built through Depoe Bay along the ocean, is now protected from large waves by a seawall. However, on March 11, 2011, the port was damaged by a tsunami caused by the Tōhoku earthquake off the coast of Japan. Read more here and here. See a short video here. Explore more of Depoe Bay and Depoe Creek here: