I was rather surprised to find this lovely spit of golden sand on Coconut Island. Gold or even white beach sand is not unusual on most of the Hawaiian Islands but on the east side of the Big Island we mainly have volcanic black beach sand, black sand is actually minute grains of lava...a black sand beach can appear overnight and disappear just a quickly, sometimes they come from the lava reaching the ocean where the temperature disparity can have explosive consequences, the resulting "sand" collects where ever the prevalent tides deposit it and voila! Instant black sand beach!White and/or gold sand tends to come from mineral sediment, ground shells and coral remnants, which breaks down to a smaller smoother particle than the volcanic sand, this accounts for black sand beaches being "rougher" than white or gold sand beaches.
White, gold, black or green (yes green, near South Point, Big Island, there is a green sand beach and its main ingredient is Olivine, cool huh.) every beach is fascinating...I call it the triple S factor; Sand. Surf and Sun, who can resist?
1 comment:
What a dream landscape!
We got the summer temperatures, but our "beaches" are made of sand hauled in from somewhere else (even though I must admit, it's quite nice pretending to sit on one of the waterways in the city, under sunbrellas, e pretend to be far away). :-)
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