A person would have to travel the world to get a collection of photos like this.įrac sand is a commercial product manufactured for the oil and gas industry. Please see an attribution in the caption of each photo. Thanks to the many photographers who shared their photos through a Creative Commons License. After examining these photos you will probably conclude that sand can be a very diverse and interesting material.

These unusual sands are a product of the types of material from which they are derived, the methods used to transport them, the chemical environment of their deposition site, and numerous other factors. They are unusual types of sand that might only be found in a few locations worldwide. Most of the examples here are not typical. This page shows photos of a few types of sand that can be found worldwide. Photograph by Stan Zurek, used here under a Creative Commons License. Volcanic rock fragments are the primary ingredient in this sand from Perissa beach on the island of Santorini, Greece, along with some quartz grains and shell fragments. A few rare sands are formed chemically from materials dissolved or suspended in sea water. A few types form when the shell or skeletal materials of organisms are broken up and transported. Most sands form when rock materials are broken down by weathering and transported by a stream to their place of deposition. Where sand accumulates in large quantities, it can be lithified into a sedimentary rock known as sandstone. It can be composed of mineral material such as quartz, orthoclase, or gypsum organic material such as mollusk shells, coral fragments, or radiolarian tests or rock fragments With particles that range in size between 1/16 millimeter and 2 millimeters in diameter.

The word 'sand' is actually used for a 'particle size' rather than for a 'material.' Sand is a loose, granular material Photograph by Siim Sepp, used here under a Creative Commons License. This image represents a 20 millimeter x 20 millimeter view. This is a good example of an organic sand. The sand also contains fragments of mollusks, forams and other organisms. Some of the beaches of Bermuda have a light pink color caused by fragments of pink coral in the sand.

Sand particles