Sands of Hawaii
As I mentioned a few posts back, I spent the week of Thanksgiving on the big island of Hawai'i. I had an exam scheduled in one of my classes, and I pre-recorded the lecture for my other class (via Smartboard), so I was free to kick back and relax on my travels. However, I find it's difficult to turn the inner geologist off, and so I spent a lot of my time checking out the cool geology of this unique island. I've got a lot of photos to share and stories to tell, but I'll start off simple: here are sand samples from four beaches in Hawai'i:
As you can no doubt tell, these sands are dominated by, respectively from top to bottom: calcareous hash (fragments of shells and corals), basalt fragments, olivine crystals flavored with basalt fragments, and a greater proportion of olivine crystals. They are respectively from "Sixty-Nines" Beach (west side of island; named for the milepost on the nearby road, so get your mind out of the gutter), Punaluu Harbor (south side of island), Green Sands Beach (south side of island), and a nameless cove between Green Sands and Ka Lae (a.k.a. South Point, on the south side of the island -- and in fact the southernmost point in the entire United States).
As you can no doubt tell, these sands are dominated by, respectively from top to bottom: calcareous hash (fragments of shells and corals), basalt fragments, olivine crystals flavored with basalt fragments, and a greater proportion of olivine crystals. They are respectively from "Sixty-Nines" Beach (west side of island; named for the milepost on the nearby road, so get your mind out of the gutter), Punaluu Harbor (south side of island), Green Sands Beach (south side of island), and a nameless cove between Green Sands and Ka Lae (a.k.a. South Point, on the south side of the island -- and in fact the southernmost point in the entire United States).
5 Comments:
Did you bring those in the containers?
Huh? What do you mean? What containers? Are you asking if I collected any?
Much more interesting sand than where I was over Thanksgiving (Alabama's beaches).
Take home collection as they are beautiful. If so, please post pictures of those sand collection if the colors had changed (getting drier?).
I didn't collect any of the "yellow" or "black" sand, and collecting was off-limits at the official Green Sands Beach. However, there were no such collecting restrictions on the (greener!) sands at the nameless cove east of Ka Lae, so I did take a fistful of green sand home with me there. It joined the NOVA teaching collection of loose sediment samples earlier today, in fact! The color has not changed much at all, though I did rinse the sand in fresh water to remove the salt. So: it's not as sticky as it was when collected fresh off the beach.
Post a Comment
<< Home