Where Did Florida Beach Sand Come From?
Much of the sand on Florida beaches is made up of quartz crystals produced by the weathering of continental land masses like the Appalachian mountains. The quartz is washed down America’s great rivers into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico where it is carried onto the beaches by water currents and waves. Combined with the sparkling quartz crystals may be shell fragments and coral, limestone, fossils and organic matter, which lend different colors to the sand. Beach sand along the southeast Florida coast and the Keys is often composed more of coral and mollusk shell fragments than of quartz crystals.
