[3] Locally, Stonewall Bank is known as the Rock Pile, has good fishing for salmon, black rockfish and flatfish.

[4] It is split by a rocky channel, which was a seaward extension of the Yaquina River, when sea level was lower than today.

It is open, for fishing for salmon, steelhead—using authorized methods, during authorized seasons—tuna, and other offshore pelagic species of fish[8] Stonewall Bank has a buoy, which provides air pressure at sea level, air temperature, sea water temperature, waves, and winds.

[9][10] Of geology, Stonewall Bank is the site of a growing, west-verging anticline which strikes north-northwest on the continental shelf, at 44.5° N, southwest of Newport, going eastward, to its onshore continuation, the Yaquina River.

[11] On Stonewall Bank, a fault discovered in 2009 near southwest of Newport could produce an earthquake which compares in size to 1994's magnitude 6.7 quake that hit Northridge, California.