Environment

The beach

Why is the beach sometimes hard and sometimes soft at the water line --- it doesn't seem dependent on the tides, as sometimes it is hard when you walk in one direction, and then is soft on your return! It almost seems as if it could be as a result of wind, evaporating the moisture in the sand, because there was no wind while walking one way, and the wind was blowing on the way back

altekake Wed 07/05/08 18:06

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Clanad
Tue 13/05/08
13:09

Apologies offeredfor overlooking your question, since the answer is pretty basic, geologically speaking; The key is the size of the particles that make up the beach sand. Without going into great detail, the size of the grains dictates how quickly the sand dries after being "wetted" from the sea or other body of water. Another site has this to day... in a nutshell... " If the grains of sand are rather large, they will dry out quickly and generally not bind together. If the sand grains are very fine the waves compact the grains together to form a very dense, hard material. Once the waves retreat this material can support a very large mass such as a truck. However, if the sand still has some water in it, has not dried out, it may still be very soupy." This can occur as quickly as it takes for one to walk one direction and then another,,, depending on circumstances...

altekake
Wed 14/05/08
18:27

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Thanks Clanad for informative answer, BUT as it is the same beach, one week it may be soft and the next day or week, it will be hard --- would the sea bring up different textures of sand, depending on the tides or currents?

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