Friday, November 1, 2013

Sand Reflection

The two sands that I am going to compare are from the Bahamas and, Cancun. The bahamas are known for it's white/ pink beaches. This is because it's sand composition is made up of alot of coral. There are a lot of coral reefs offshore and when they break off, they are moved toward the beach. After waves constantly crashing down on them, they are broken down small enough that it looks like sand. Under microscope, the particles looked large in comparison to other grains. The sand that I looked at undermicroscope from Cancun was very different. Though it had a similar white color of the sand, that is all it really shared. The pieces of sand were smaller in size and were rather rounded meaning that they are be bombarded by waves on a more constant basis. The sand was not quite as coral based. It had a more rocky sediment in it that i would assume came from a graite compound. The magnetite for both groupings of sand was rather strong.

1 comment:

  1. Correction: there was no magnetite in either of the samples. The picture above is not representative of either sand. The pink at the Bahamas is from the seashells. Try this Bahamas picture: http://web.ncf.ca/jim/sand/micrographs/LoveBeach_Bahamas.jpg
    (Reference: Jim Elder photograph, Ottawa, Canada)

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