{"id":15151,"date":"2025-11-15T19:10:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T02:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/?p=15151"},"modified":"2025-11-15T19:10:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T02:10:21","slug":"jasper-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/2025\/11\/jasper-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Jasper Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week we took a field trip to Jasper Beach in Machiasport. It’s a rare beach covered with pebbles, not sand. The pebbles are not actually “jasper” but are rhyolite – of volcanic origin. I learned these facts on the Internet. This is a well-written, almost poetic, article about it.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sheer number of pebbles was a bit overwhelming. If you like rocks, there certainly were a lot to look at. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jasper Beach, Machiasport <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The sky was dramatic the day we were there. No rain fell, but lots of clouds passed over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sea and clouds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This rocky outcropping down at the tideline looks blurry in the photograph, but that’s actually what it looked like. I wonder what was different about this rock and the pebbles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bedrock near the water<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The plant life along the edge of the beach included this American Mountain Ash, Sorbus Americana<\/em>. Also known as: “Rowantree, rowan berry, roundwood, mountain sumac, winetree, dogberry, service tree, wild ash, quickbeam, and missey-moosey, among others.” (Arbor Day Foundation’s page<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A mountain ash <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The clusters of berries were huge and bright red. I’m surprised the birds hadn’t gotten into them yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Also known as Rowan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was also some dead wood sticking out of the pebbles. Had the extension of the pebbly beach claimed this tree’s life? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dead wood – overrun by beach stones? <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like the dead trees, the whole area is a little creepy. There is an abandoned neighborhood right across the street from the beach – an old military base. The rumor is that the homes were abandoned due to toxic well water. This article<\/a> seems to confirm that rumor – the chemical of most concern is TCE (trichloroethylene), which was used to clean radar equipment. After usage, it was dumped into old dry wells – not realizing the chemical could spread underground and contaminate ground water and live wells. So crazy. It was interesting to find this history written up on a website called “The Quoddy Tides<\/a>, The Most Easterly Published Newspaper in the US.” I might visit this website again, even though it doesn’t cover my town. The hyper-local news about this very rural part of Maine (“downeast” of us) is fascinating. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week we took a field trip to Jasper Beach in Machiasport. It’s a rare beach covered with pebbles, not sand. The pebbles are not actually “jasper” but are rhyolite – of volcanic origin....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[505],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seascape"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15151"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15153,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151\/revisions\/15153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}