Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • Free Essays • My Term Papers • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Science Sand Sand Sand can tell a lot about a land. Amelia island sand most likely does the same. But before one can find out if the sand depicts the island, one most know what sand is. The pure definition of sand is grains worn from rock between 0.06 to 2.0 millimeters in diameter. Sand can be talked about as sediment when it is together with silt, gravel, and clay. (3) But on top of that basic definition, one should know what makes up sand, the ways sand is distributed, and about Amelia Island itself. As told earlier, sand is formed from worn rock. Those rocks are the sedimentary, metamorphic, or igneous rocks. A sedimentary rock is made up of chemical, mechanical, or organic sediment. Some important types of Sedimentary rock which are distinguished by texture and chemical composition are sandstone, conglomerate, tillite, shale, sedimentary breccia, chalk, marl, coal, lignite, rock salt, gypsum. Igneous rock is rock that is formed by the solidification of a molten magma. If the rock is made from lava on the earth’s surface, it is called extrusive rock, but if the igneous rock solidified beneath the earth’s surface it is called intrusive rock. Metamorphic rocks start from the changing in the texture and mineral whole of sedimentary, igneous, and older metamorphic rocks under excessive pressure and heat within the earth. Some of the most common metamorphic rocks are gneiss, quartzite, schist, slate, and marble. (2) There are tons of examples of how a type of sand tells of the land it is from because of the rocks it is made up of. A great example of that is if you find sand made from plutonic igneous rocks, then one know that the sand is probably near mountains, since plutonic igneous rocks form the bulk of mountain ranges. (6) Sand made of volcanic rocks, which is probably extrusive rock (2), are most likely near volcanoes because those rocks are formed from lava. (6) The rocks sand is made up of is essential to figuring out where the sand is from, and in the making of sand itself. In some places there are no useable sources of sedimentary material, then the sand usually is made of organic material. Those are materials like coral, fragmented shell, and the skeletons of small planktonic organisms. The sands that are completely made up of those materials each have a name. One type is coral sand, which is made up of corals. Shell sands, which are made up of shells, is another. Foraminiferal sands, which are made up mainly of an order of Rhizopoda (Rhizopoda is a subclass of Sarcodina) which is mostly made up of marine protozoan that contain one or more nuclei, is yet another. The organic material in sand, or the lack of it, is extremely important because it can help tell whether the sand is from a beach or tropical place, or from a desert, or other places like that. (6) Sand can also show where it is from because of the minerals it contains. The most common mineral is silica, which is often in the form of quartz. Other minerals that are in sand are usually in small portions. Some of those minerals are olivine, the micas, the feldspars, garnet, calcite, hornblende, magnetite. Each of those minerals has their own distinct appearances. Quartz is usually rounded, and looks clear and glassy, but it can be milky. Olivine has a glassy shine and is olive green, mean while mica has luster, can break into thin sheets, and is soft. Feldspar can be a variety of colors, either gray, tan, or pink with a dull luster or shine. Garnet can be pink or red, and has a glassy shine. The calcite has a pearly type luster and breaks into tiny, cube like pieces. Hornblende can either be black or dark green. The mineral magnetite is attracted to magnet and is dark colored. The minerals the sand contains can help distinguish the home of that particular sand and from what type of rock it is originated. (5) A person can tell a lot about the land that particular sand is from by examining the sand and finding out what minerals it has. Examples of that are that sediment that possibly had feldspar minerals and largely composed of quartz and other minerals connected with plutonic igneous rock means it is from a beach in Southern California that is near mountain ranges. Sand that rich in calcium is most likely from a island or tropical place, and is most likely shell sand since seashells are high in calcium and the sand from those locations are made up of the broken down shells. Sands that have a lot of Silicon are almost always if not always from an inland lake, rive, stream, or ponds because in those places rocks are made of various types of silicates, which are broken down to form the sand. Most “black” sands are high in iron and aluminum is volcanic in origin. The importance of the ability to find out about a land by the minerals in most lands there is sand, and there are usually ways of seeing what minerals the sand contains. If one can’t tell what rocks the sand is made up of, and the sand is not organic, then a person probably will at least be able to see what minerals the sand has and therefore be able to distinguish what rock it is formed from and so forth. (6) There are several different ways for sand to get to a deposit, each which changes the sand in some way. Sand travels to its deposits through wind, water, and ice. Sand and water are the more commonly used transports and the relatively fast form of transport for sand. Ice is the transport that takes the longest amount of time to get to a deposit. (4) As the sand is transported it usually happens to “round off” the sides because of abrasion and the sands hitting each other. That is important because it can be used to help figure out how far that sand has traveled. A sand grain that has lots of sharp sides most likely has not traveled very far; most likely only within a small area, while a sand grain that has very little or no sharp sides has probably traveled a very long distance. (6) There are several places that sand is deposited into, each very different. The largest on the surface deposits of sand is in deserts or beaches. In those beaches and deserts, the wind often causes the sand to be put on top of each other into ridges called dunes. In the end, sand usually is left as sand dunes in rivers or lakes and other bodies of water. Sand deposits occasionally are made from the weathering of sandstone and quartzite forms. Sandstone and quartzite rocks are just hardened masses of sand. The sand deposits are what tell about the land. (4) Before a person can experiment with the sand from Amelia Island, one most learn of the island itself. That will help to explain anything learned during the course of the testing and examining of the sand. Amelia Island is an island of the northeast corner of Florida just across the St. Mary’s river from Georgia. It has a relatively balmy climate, seasons are viewed, it’s temperature during summer is from the 70’s to highs that could even be in the low 100 degrees, and during the winter the temperature is between the 20’s and 60’s. Many different seagulls nest in Amelia Island, and it is a wonderful location for shelling and looking for fossilized shark teeth. (1) Because of the information about it’s shelling, one can figure out that its sand most likely has a lot of the mineral calcite. (5). Bibliography: Bibliography 1. “Amelia island information,” Amelia islander, July 1999, . 2. “Rock,” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Ed. . 3. “Sand,” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. . 4. “Sand,” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. . 5. Solliday, Loretta “Sediment transport of an Estuary,” Estuarine Ecology, fall of 1997, (December22, 1999). 6. “What is Sand,” Sand of the World, . Word Count: 1304
Copyright © 1998-2008 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved. DMCA Notifications and Requests