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I just read all the email on pink sands. Brian is correct, they are fine particles of garnet. There are garnets in the neaby rock that are weathered out by wave action, etc and that reddish (garnet) colour is the typical colour of the mineral. The waves sort the materials and so bands, or thin layers of like materials are deposited together on the beach.. When I dragged my toe through them these garnet layers were always on the surface so I had wondered and assumed they were lighter that the other beach materials. Anyway the idea is they are a different density. Pete ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Starzomski" <bstarzomski@gmail.com> To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 3:27 PM Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Pink sands > Hi all- > > The general explanation given for the purple sands at the KSA is that > they are in fact heavy mineral sands as suggested by Ian (garnets, in > fact) weathered out of the Meguma Terrane rocks of the headlands near > the beaches. > > Cheers, > > Brian > > > > On 5/19/07, iamclar@dal.ca <iamclar@dal.ca> wrote: >> Hi again, Sherman. >> >> I removed magenta from the pics, and the background tones became more >> natural on >> my screen, but the pink (more pale mauve, I'd say) remains on the outer >> beach. >> I think this might result from a sorting of heavy mineral sands (Zircon). >> But >> perhaps others are right about an organic origin. It is unlikely that >> beach >> sands would be anoxic enough and laden with sulphides to harbour "purple >> Cyanobacteria" (I don't know current taxonomic assigment), which produce >> this >> sort of colour on saltmarsh muds. >> >> Cheers, Ian McLaren >> >
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