Sand - How did the sand get so white?

The sand here on the Emerald Coast is among the whitest, cleanest and softest in the world. What you might not know, is that when you walk on the beaches here, you are actually walking on the mountains - the Appalachian Mountains, that is.

The sand on the Emerald Coast beaches is comprised mainly of quartz washed down from the mountains by the Apalachicola River, 130 miles east of Ft. Walton Beach. It is this quartz, ground to a perfect oval in each grain of sand, that makes the beach "squeak" when you walk on it.

Normally, such quarts has a rosy pink tint because of it's iron oxide coating, but the sugary-white quartz of the Emerald Coast lost it's coating somewhere along it's watery journey thousands of years ago. No one knows exactly how or why.

What scientists do know, is that erosion of these beautiful sugar-sand beaches can be prevented. One way is by prohibiting over-development of the shoreline. Another is by preserving sea oats, a unique type of vegetation that grows in the area just beyond most wave action where few other plants are able to grow.

Or call:

Cathey Bazel
615-646-1800

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