Where Does Beach Sand Come From? The Formation and Origins of Sand

KOMPAS.com – You can definitely find sand on almost every beach you’ve ever been to.

But when walking on it, have you ever wondered why there is sand on the beach and where does the sand actually come from?

Reported from Science ABCTuesday (29/8/2023) sand is used in colloquial terms to refer to the type of soil found on beaches and deserts.

Geologically, the grain size of sand is in the range of 0.0625-2 millimeters.

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The most common type of sand found in inland environments is silica (silicon dioxide – SiO-2), which is usually in the form of quartz.

Meanwhile, another very common type of sand consists of calcium carbonate (eg aragonite), which is formed over a period of millions of years.

Sand on beaches around the world comes from the weathering and breaking down of rocks over millions of years, along with the bits and pieces of shellfish and coral that are held up on beaches by waves.

So, one of the reasons why large amounts of sand end up on beaches is through the weathering of the abundant rocks in the earth’s crust over millions of years.

In addition, river flow continuously erodes the soil (rocks and other materials), thus breaking the rock into small sand-sized particles.

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These particles are then carried away by rivers, only to be deposited in the sea or ocean where they peak. Of course, this process takes hundreds of thousands of years.

But you must have also noticed that not all beaches are sandy, some are pebbly, and even have large boulders and boulders.

This is because the type of sand found on a beach is mainly influenced by the size of the material on the beach and the height (energy) of the waves.

So in general, beaches with gravel or coarse sand are very young, while beaches with fine sand are older.

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Colored sand

On some beaches, the sand is also colored. This difference in color depends on the material from which the sand is formed, for example, eroded bedrock and local geological conditions.

The most common type of beach color is the characteristic light brown, which comes from the coloring of iron in quartz and iron oxide in feldspar, the two most common sand elements found on most beaches.

While the black sand on some beaches is formed by erosion of basalt – lava from volcanoes.

Likewise, the green color of some beaches is caused by an olive-green mineral called olivine, which is abundant in basalt in certain parts of the world.

Then the color of the white sandy beach is caused by broken pieces of dead coral. Coral skeleton is made of calcium carbonate so it is white.

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2023-08-30 04:00:00
#Sand #Beach