Origin of Sand

[cary lichtenstein]

I was looking at the bottom of the sea today and the thought occurred to me:

"Where does sand come from?"

Is there always sand on the bottom of every ocean? Every lake?

Does the sand area of Nebraska and Pinehurst mean that they were at the bottom of the Ocean at one time?

What about sand pits?

What about all the deserts of the world, were they too the floors of oceans?

[Brock Peyer]

This is really deep!!!

I would look in Genesis.

[Melvyn Morrow]

As  Brock said

This is really deep!!!

I would look in Genesis.

Perhaps I will go a little deeper, it comes from my last trip to the bunkers at Crieff

[TEPaul]

      "The flow of water is governed by the law of gravity--it seeks hollows. And as most of our bunkers are hollows in the ground, we have only to consider that when a hollow becomes filled with water and overflows, a channel is created which in time grows larger until the original hollow ceases to exist as such and becomes the end of a wash or swale. And what is sand but the residue of soils? And what is residue but something that occupies the bottom of things? Hence sand is a geological sign of the erosion. If, then, we are to make our employment of sand appear to be authentic, it should occupy slightly cup-shaped hollows, which should surface drain through channels to which artistry must give the illusion of having been eroded. If this is successfully accomplished, then the fact that the hollow is man-made will not obtrude itself upon the golfer's vision.
         Where air currents are responsible for the movement of soils (and it is realized that a particle of fine sand is several hundred thousand times larger than a particle of clay), we have that form of erosion where all the finer particles of the soil have been blown away leaving behind a residue of sand in flat wastes which, under the continuous urgency of wind, are transformed into dunes-lands. Hence if we are to use sand in great wastes, these should be large enough to create the illusion that erosion has resulted from wind."


As usual, just leave it to Maxie Behr to bring some understanding of things to you benighted golf analysts.  

[Bradley Anderson]

All sands are mineral particles, as are clay and silt. Think of them as rock dust, disintegrated by weathering: warming, cooling, freezing and thawing, wetting and drying, wind and water erosion, glacial ice movement, and even root penetration.

Earth is a very privileged planet. Because we have a thin crust with a shifting plate, minerals from below the surface are brought up to the top where the elements can break them down into life sustaining soil.

There are five texture types of sand - very coarse, coarse, medium, fine, and very fine. Texture all depends on the extent of weathering and the type of parent rock.

When you mix rock dust with air, water, and organic matter you have soil. In a typical soil 45% is mineral component, 5% is organic matter, 25% is air, and 25% is water.

The turf managers job is to be the conservator of all these components.

[Mark Bourgeois]

For the sake of your sanity I hope you're not posting from a ship cruising over the Great Barrier Reef.

[James Bennett]

Mark

is there a better place to post?  I think it would have been just after sunset when Cary's first post went up.  

Behr's thoughts were interesting, thanks Tom.

Any thoughts on coral, or brightly coloured fish?

James B

[cary lichtenstein]

Serious questions I pose and what do I get?

 So I reserached it myself and it is interesting. Here is the link for those of you who want to learn about the 3 types of sand:

www.sandcollectors.org

click on "what is sand"