ISCS SandFest 2022 happened in Coos Bay, Oregon and sadly I did not attend as I had planned. But one of the members offered 20 sand samples from around the world if we would pay the postage. I am so thrilled, I am putting my in vials today. Such a catch of sand, I have run out of vials!
I just saw this post on Facebook. Ohhh, Pompeii!!!! Hiroshima!!! I am thinking about going to Sandfest 2022 in Coos Bay, Oregon.
Tomás, from Sevilla (south of Spain) and this his my story around the sands: when he took a trip for first time, a friend of mine told his about to take a little bit of sand as a original souvenir...
He thought it was a great idea, so much that he always do the same each every single trip, since that moment. Bit a bit, this becomes a collection.
It's important to him that every bottle in my collection is one of his trips, all of these sands he have, were taken by him. It's a small collection (specially compared to yours), but each of these bottles has a great meaning to him (and memories, too).
Few days ago, he was wondering if there were other people collecting sands, and... he found International Sand Collectors Society on Facebook. Its great to see your collections, ways to show them, and everything about this.
More than 800 jars of soil from lynching sites across the country will be exhibited in the museum that traces the history of enslaved black people in America from the horrors of slavery to the terrors of lynching, the humiliation of Jim Crow and the current crisis of police violence against blacks.
The Collector’s Box — Soil Projects
Atelier NL was asked by geologist Richard Fortey to visualize the material transformation of one square meter of earth from Grym’s Dyke Wood. In the hands of Atelier NL, the native earth and stone yeilded a unique array of pigments, ceramics, and glass. The flint sparked as it was crushed and ground into a fine powder. When exposed to high temperatures, the flint powder melted into white, green, and bluish glass. The tough earth, kneaded, cleaned, and dried, was then exposed to a gradation of extreme temperatures. A bold array of pigments and ceramic tiles resulted, ranging from warm creamy brown to rich peat. In one small patch of ground in Grym’s Dyke Wood, Atelier NL found all of the resources to make a variety of paints, pigments, ceramic tiles, and glass.
It may be little more than grains of weathered rock, and can be found in deserts and on beaches around the world, but sand is also the world’s second most consumed natural resource.
The Abundance and Scarcity of Sand' is a symposium focused on the critical discussion of sand as one of the most quickly disappearing natural resources in the world. Every year, we remove billions of tons of sand from beaches, rivers, oceans and land, and lock it away in our infrastructure and technologies. This has resulted in what experts are now calling a global sand scarcity. Hosted by Atelier NL & MU, this symposium invites artists, designers, scientists, environmentalists, and the local community to participate in both lectures and in-depth conversations regarding the environmental challenges and potential solutions surrounding sand.
We dedicate this symposium to the memory of Micheal Welland (1946-2017), British geologist and author of the award-winning book ‘Sand’: A Journey Through Science and the Imagination'. Micheal had a profound poetic understanding of life and the natural world and his passion for sand inspired this very symposium. His spirit will never leave us and neither will his words.In memory of Michael Welland
We were deeply saddened to hear that Michael Welland, one of our Whizz Pop Boffins, passed away last month.
Michael was a geologist and sand expert who advised Whizz Pop Bang on all things sandy and rocky, and taught us everything we know about building amazing sandcastles. He was enormously supportive and enthusiastic about the magazine from the start. Always full of fantastic suggestions and inspiring ideas, Michael was a real asset to have on board. He will be greatly missed.
My husband and I recently took a road trip and drove through Moab, Utah and Arches National Park. I kept seeing this blue-green dirt on the mountain side and was totally intriqued and wanted some of it for my collection. I did finally find a place to gather a little bit for collection. I finally got all of my samples logged in and numbered, hopefully, I will get them in vials soon.
"It's the Morrison Formation! It's silty and muddy rock with some sandstones deposited in a river floodplain environment. The green stuff is iron deposited in an anoxic (underwater) environment, while the red is oxidized iron. The formation is also full of uranium. When you're driving around in southern Utah and see these green/red/white/purple sequences, it's usually either the Morrison Formation or the Petrified Forest member of the Chinle Formation."
