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 and, composition, creation and/or fields:

    The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)

    There was not a grain of poetry in the whole composition of Lord Fawn, and poetry was what her very soul craved;Mpoetry, together with houses, champagne, jewels, and admiration.
    Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)

    Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, “and lo! creation widens to our view.”
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
    Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
    Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
    I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”
    Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864)