(Roughly) Daily

Sand covers so much of the earth’s surface that shipping it across borders—even uncontested ones—seems extreme. But sand isn’t just sand, it turns out. In the industrial world, it’s “aggregate,” a category that includes gravel, crushed stone, and various recycled materials. Natural aggregate is the world’s second most heavily exploited natural resource, after water, and for many uses the right kind is scarce or inaccessible. In 2014, the United Nations Environment Programme published a report titled “Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks,” which concluded that the mining of sand and gravel “greatly exceeds natural renewal rates” and that “the amount being mined is increasing exponentially, mainly as a result of rapid economic growth in Asia.”…

It’s one of our most widely used natural resources, but it’s scarcer than you think: “The world is running out of sand.”

* William Blake

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As we think anxiously about the beach, we might spare a thought for René Just Haüy; he died on this date in 1822.  An ordained priest (and honorary canon of Notre Dame), he began his scientific career as a botanist, but detoured into geology when a specimen of calcareous spar caught his fancy.  It inspired him to undertake a series of experiments which resulted in his outlining of the geometrical law of crystallization now associated with his name.  As a result, he’s considered the Father of Crystallography…  a field that concerns itself with quartz, a major component of sand.

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