Sand : the never-ending story / Michael Welland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Welland, Michael, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sand--Miscellanea.

Sand.

Sandstone--Miscellanea.

Sandstone.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (375 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 nature's humblest, most powerful, and most ubiquitous materials. Told by a geologist with a novelist's sense of language and narrative, Sand examines the science-sand forensics, the physics of granular materials, sedimentology, paleontology and archaeology, planetary exploration-and 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 us-it 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.

Contents:

Individuals

Tribes

Sand and imagination

Societies on the move

Moving on

Blowing in the wind

Witness

Servant

Outward and onward.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 305-321) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780520942004

0520942000

OCLC:

1076680309