Samalayuca Dunes - Composition and Creation of The Dune Fields

Composition and Creation of The Dune Fields

The white to tan sands of the dune fields are almost pure silica. On average, the sand contains 90-95% quartz and 5-10% mixed rock grains.

The particle shapes are nodular and spheroid. they were formed by airflow erosion of rocks that created small fragments that were then carried away by the wind, to be deposited in natural land depressions. Another factor assisting in the formation of the dunes is the abrupt changes of temperature that exist in the desert, which assisted in the breaking up of surface rock into sand grains.

Read more about this topic:  Samalayuca Dunes

Famous quotes containing the words composition, creation and/or fields:

    Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.
    Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)

    A fact is the end or last issue of spirit. The visible creation is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    It would not be an easy thing to bring the water all the way to the plain. They would have to organize a great coumbite with all the peasants and the water would unite them once again, its fresh breath would clear away the fetid stink of anger and hatred; the brotherly community would be reborn with new plants, the fields filled with to bursting with fruits and grains, the earth gorged with life, simple and fertile.
    Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)