SAND COLLECTION (Not as boring as it sounds.)

One of my hobbies has been to collect sand.  That may sound boring, after all it's just tiny rocks. But I enjoy gathering it because it is in every country on earth so its easy to find and it costs nothing to collect.  All you need is a way to get there and a small container to put it in.  Hummm, actually that can be quite expensive if you collect it personally.  Instead I trade samples with collectors in other countries.  Compared to many my collection is quite small.  It's only 40 because I only collect samples with unique characteristics.

The first thing I consider is the location that it came from.  I think it's cool to have sand from remote places like Tasmania or Santorini clear on the other side of the world.  How about magnetic ash from an out-of-this-world burned up asteroid or river sand from deep in the Amazon Basin? 

The next consideration is color.  When I started to pay attention I found sand has an amazing variety of colors.  Check out the photos and you will see what I mean; from black to white, pink to red, yellows and greens and even blue. 

To me the real prize is in the ingredients.  Using a magnifier to look at the grains I can interpret where it came from; is it sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous.  The shape can tell how old it is, if angular then it is young and if it is rounded it may be from deep time billions of years old.  It's color, shape and weight all mean something.  Sometimes it is even magnetic.

The International Sand Collectors Society is a group of serious arenophiles (sand collectors) that collect and trade sands globally through the Internet.  They have a website where anyone can join for just $12 per year.  With membership you gain access to sand lists that others are willing to trade.  For this reason it is important to gather a significant quantity of sands for trade purposes that others might find desirable.  My series of sands from the Painted Desert has been my most popular commodity.   

  

 

Samples 1 - 10 are all from the Chinle formation of the Painted Desert north of Cameron, Arizona.  These ten are my trade sands which have been extremely popular with collectors in Europe.  

SAMPLE 1

Painted Desert Red, Arizona

 Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The red color comes from iron oxide. 

SAMPLE 2

Painted Desert Pink, Arizona

Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The pink color comes from iron oxide. 

SAMPLE 3

Painted Desert Brown, Arizona

Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The brown color comes from magnesium oxide. 

SAMPLE 4

Painted Desert Olive, Arizona

  Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The olive color comes from magnesium oxide. 

SAMPLE 5

Painted Desert Black, Arizona

 Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The black color comes from magnesium oxide. 

SAMPLE 6

Painted Desert White, Arizona

Lake deposit gypsum.  Petrified wood  is often found in this layer.

SAMPLE 7

Painted Desert Yellow, Arizona

Lake deposit gypsum then stained with iron oxide.

SAMPLE 8

Painted Desert Lavender, Arizona

 Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The lavender color comes from carbon. 

SAMPLE 9

Painted Desert Blue, Arizona

Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The blue color comes from carbon. 

SAMPLE 10

Painted Desert Green, Arizona

Originally deposited as volcanic ash 250 mya in a shallow lake environment.  In time the ash decomposed into smaller particles of benotite clay.  When wet it becomes slimy and hardens into larger lumps as it dries.  The green color comes from carbon. 

SAMPLE 11

Rainbow Basin, Barstow, California

Altered volcanic ash into bentonite clay.

SAMPLE 12

Page, Copper Mine Road, Arizona

Malachite copper precipitated into very old rounded silica sand.

SAMPLE 13

Corsica, France

Serpentine (metamorphic olivine)

SAMPLE 14

Papakolea Beach, South Point, Hawaii

Mostly olivine and black basalt lava. 

SAMPLE 15

White Sands, New Mexico

Gypsum aeolian dunes.

SAMPLE 16

Red Hill Pass, Fairplay, Colorado

Pink Quartz

SAMPLE 17

Laramie, Wyoming

Orange Quartz

SAMPLE 18

Valley of Fire, Mouses Tank, Nevada

Red quartz

SAMPLE 19

Ayers Rock, Australia

Very old granitic particles

SAMPLE 20

Monument Valley, Utah

Red Quartz

SAMPLE 21

Kanab Creek north of Kanab, Utah

Ooids with iron oxide precipitated around granitic particles.

SAMPLE 21 with back light

SAMPLE 22

Salt River Canyon & Highway 77/60

Diabase dike of gabbro & olivine.

SAMPLE 23

Maastricht, Netherands

Chalk quarry where several Mosasaur fossils were found in 1764.  The 59 foot

Cretaceous marine reptile was the first to seriously challenge religious dogma. 

SAMPLE 24

Vernal, Highway 191, Utah

Yellow Quartz

SAMPLE 25 

Napo River, Amazon Basin, Ecuador

Volcanic material that has washed out of the Andes Mountains.

The overall greenish tint is from olivine.

SAMPLE 26

 Kilauea Lava Flow, Pacific Ocean, Hawaii

3 hours old when collected on 10-18-1989.

Obsidian with olivine crystals  

SAMPLE 26 with back light

SAMPLE 27

Blue Lagoon, Iceland

Silica & sulfur precipitate.

SAMPLE 28

Glass Beach, Port Allen, Hawaii

Fragments of wave polished broken glass, shells, coral and even aluminum. 

SAMPLE 29

Vanua Levu Island, Fiji, 

Organic particles of crinoids, shells and coral.

SAMPLE 30

 Hoshizuna Beach, Okinawa, Japan

Star sand, the exoskeletons of foraminifera.

SAMPLE 30 closeup

I found this in a vile at a Goodwill store.  The angular green particles

are contaminates added as filler that stained the forams green.   

SAMPLE 31

Guadeloupe Island, Caribbean Sea

Shell fragments and organisms.

SAMPLE 32

Minas Gerais, Brazil, South America

From a mining district.

SAMPLE 33

 

Geraldton, Australia

Red Garnet

SAMPLE 33 with back light

SAMPLE 34

Pura Tanah Lot, Bali, Indonesia

Magnetic Sand

60% magnetite, olivine, quartz & shell fragments.

SAMPLE 34 with back light

SAMPLE 35

Great Salt Lake, Utah

Ooids.  Calcium carbonate formed around

a nucleus by warm gentle wave action.

SAMPLE 36

Joulter Cays, Andros Island, Bahamas

Salt water ooids of calcium carbonate.

SAMPLE 37

Bicheno Beach, Tasmania Island, Australia

White Quartz and black volcanics

SAMPLE 38

Diablo Canyon, Arizona

Magnetic asteroid ash from the Barringer meteor.

SAMPLE 39

Houghton, Michigan

Copper mine smelter slag.

SAMPLE 40

Cerro Sapo, Bolivia, South America

Sodalite from an ancient Aztec mine.