34 beachLIFE NATURE THE STORY OF SAND
The sand . Flour-soft and , on sunny days , blindingly white . It ’ s a defining presence on Florida ’ s Emerald Coast , changing everything it touches — from the water itself to those who visit the coastline it forms .
This soft powder is actually rock — nearly 100 % quartz mixed with finely ground seashells . Together they form a seabed that stretches miles out into the Gulf of Mexico . Wave action on the Gulf slowly develops submerged sandbars that run along the length of the coastline . In the shallows , the water appears to glow as though lit from within — the effect of refracted sunlight reflecting off the seafloor . This combination of sun , sea , and sand creates stunning gradations of color from white to aquamarine to cobalt blue .
A casual walk on an Emerald Coast beach is a sensory experience . The sand is so pure that it squeaks underfoot . Listerine-colored waters are paired with the tactile sense of impossibly soft and utterly homogenous sand . The wetted portions form a slurry that is at once soft and abrasive , something to be played in or shaped into sculpture . It ’ s this perfect maritime world that stretches on for miles and miles in either direction . There are other beaches further to the east and west , but nothing approaches the otherworldly allure of the Emerald Coast .
ORIGINS
So , where does the sand come from ? And why does every other beach in the world pale in comparison ?
The beaches of the Emerald Coast are made from the stuff of mountains — specifically the Appalachians . The story begins 12,000 years ago in the final centuries of the last ice age when the planet was warming , and the miles-deep North American ice sheet was in full retreat . Along the spine of the Appalachians , the ice and rock beneath it formed what can only be described as a massive crucible that pulverized the quartz into a fine talc-like powder ( under a microscope , the individual grains are finely worn into ovals — like tiny identical bits of sea glass ). The melting ice became a torrent , sending a slurry down various waterways all the way to the Gulf of Mexico , much of it delivered by what we now know as the Apalachicola