Boneyard Beach, Coastal beach at Big Talbot Island State Park, Florida, US

Boneyard Beach is a mile-long beach in Big Talbot Island State Park, south of Amelia Island near Fernandina Beach, Florida. It lies beyond a 20-foot bluff, and its sand is strewn with the bleached skeletons of fallen oaks, which give the beach its name.

The bluff behind the beach is a 20-foot scarp of earth and clay that the sea undercuts a little more each year. As it retreats, live oaks growing at its edge lose their footing and fall onto the sand, where salt and sun bleach them to pale skeletons. Park archaeologists have also recovered fossilized mammoth bones on the beach, nearly as large as the fallen trees.

The name comes from the bleached oak skeletons strewn along the sand, which photographers come to shoot; the park does not recommend swimming here. Park archaeologists also found fossilized mammoth bones on the beach, nearly as large as the trees.

The site is accessible through a designated parking area, with a short walk from there to the beach. Visitors should wear sturdy footwear because the surface is uneven with logs and obstacles that require careful footing.

Park archaeologists found fossilized mammoth bones on the beach, some nearly as large as the fallen oaks beside them. The bleached tree skeletons that give the beach its name come from oaks toppled from the bluff by erosion, not from the fossils.