By David McRee of BlogTheBeach.com
Grayton Beach pure quartz sand crystals.
Have a good look at the sand crystals pictured above, then compare them to the sand pictured below. What differences do you see?
Fort Lauderdale Beach sand.
Both sand samples are just plain old beach sand that I scooped up from Florida public beaches.
Both samples contain clear quartz crystals.
The Grayton Beach sand in the top photo is nearly pure quartz crystals. The Fort Lauderdale Beach sand also is based on quartz crystals, but contains a significant percentage of tiny shell fragments which are polished to a high shine by the constant abrasion they suffer. The shell fragments give the sand a different feel and give it a light golden brown color.
They are both beautiful, are they not? Many people insist on having a white sand beach, but if you take a close-up look at beach sand, you may find, like I do, that the brown, orange, and gray sands are equally beautiful and full of bits of shell treasures.
