Sand: The Never-Ending Story

About this book

From individual grains to desert dunes from the bottom of the sea to the landscapes of Mars and from billions of years in the past to the future this is the extraordinary story of one of natures humblest most powerful and most ubiquitous materials. Told by a geologist with a novelists sense of language and narrative Sand examines the sciencesand forensics the physics of granular materials sedimentology paleontology and archaeology planetary explorationand at the same time explores the rich human context of sand. Interwoven with tales of artists mathematicians explorers and even a vampire the story of sand is an epic of environmental construction and destruction an adventure in staggering scales of time and distance yet a tale that encompasses the ordinary and everyday. Sand in fact is all around usit has made possible our computers buildings and windows toothpaste cosmetics and paper and it has played dramatic roles in human history commerce and imagination. In this luminous kinetic revelatory account we do indeed find the world in a grain of sand.