Gearhart, OR Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 0.3 miles northwest of Gearhart, OR
0.3 miles northwest of Gearhart, OR, the coast is advancing, not retreating, at a measured 2.24 feet a year, sediment accumulating faster than any erosion USGS recorded here. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 22.4 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Gearhart, OR, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 46.03, -123.92. The survey behind it runs to 2002-2011, in USGS's Pacific Northwest assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
What 2.24 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 2.24 ft/yr accretion rate 0.3 miles northwest of Gearhart, OR for 25 years would add roughly 56 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 39 individual transects averaged together, 0% of which measured erosion rather than growth. USGS's confidence interval here is ±1.18 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 1167. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2012-1008. Rank 1180 nationally for growth belongs to Ocean Park, WA, 29 miles from this stretch, measured at 2.86 ft/yr, 1.3x this stretch's rate. Seaside, OR, 1.7 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading accretion (beach growing) at 1.99 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Gearhart itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.