Archive: 2009 - Through the sandglass

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From Bogart to Bugs - the Angle of Repose

I try to make a point of watching all movies that feature sand in a significant role (probably the subject of a future post), and my 88-year-old father-in-law w...

February 1, 2009 6 min read

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Magic Crystals - Tales Zircons Tell

The picture on the left is of our oldest earthly possessions. They are sand grains, but special ones, each an individual crystal of zircon, the silicate of the...

February 1, 2009 8 min read

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February 2009

Musings and news on the extraordinary stories sand has to tell of our planet and daily lives

February 1, 2009 4 min read

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Grain-by-Grain (1): worm superglue

We are not the only species that builds homes and condominium complexes from sand. For example, some foraminifera construct shells from sand grains, as does the...

January 1, 2009 4 min read

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Grain-by-Grain (2): the amazing sand bottles of Andrew Clemens

Sand has always provided a medium, a muse, an inspiration in many ways, but the way in which it inspired Andrew Clemens was extraordinary - and unique. Clemens...

January 1, 2009 13 min read

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Granular stuff, earthquakes, and power laws - again

Back in November, in my post on the sandglass, I commented that watching avalanches of sand in a sandglass is to witness one of nature’s most fundamental laws i...

January 1, 2009 4 min read

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Of Mice and Sand - Evolution in Action

This is the year of the great Darwinfest and, inevitably, sand makes its contribution. The immediate reference would be to the “sand walk” at Down House in the...

January 1, 2009 6 min read

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Sediment Budget Busting

Sometimes you have to wonder. And the good tax-paying citizens of Bournemouth are certainly wondering. An article in yesterday’s UK Guardian newspaper highlight...

January 1, 2009 6 min read

art books coastal education geomorphology history photography rivers_water sand science travel wildlife

The man who figured out how deserts work

Among the many things that are intoxicating about the desert, the things that draw us back, I find the silence perhaps the most compelling. In a world where noi...

January 1, 2009 16 min read