Green Point

One of the few places in the world you can stand on is the rocky beach at Green Point. If you tried to go to the Earth's mantle, it would be over a thousand degrees below your feet and you wouldn't know it. The plate tectonics brought the mantle to you on this beautiful beach in an obscure corner of Washington State.

There is a rock called serpentinite. The upper portion of the earth's mantle is where this rock came from. The rocks at Green Point are reddish in color. The mineral olivine is found in both dunite and peridotite. Some iron-bearing minerals are found in peridotite.

In some areas of the park, the growth of trees and vegetation is limited by high levels of chromium. It is not clear how this portion of the mantle came to be in this park, but it most likely happened when the San Juan Islands and other bits of exotic terranes were smooshed onto the North American continent.

The park is close to the ferry terminal and is open to the public.

rock formations geological oddities geology

It has been published.

October 11th, 2022.

This listing could be changed.