Very often I was annoyed of not having a complete and updated tradelist so this weekend I started to count all leftovers for the first 1,000 samples. I was surprised to see that one third (336 samples) could potentially be swapped although most of them are in very small amounts (see graphic below).

I will try over the next days to record also the rest up to 2,700 and put together a comprehensive trade list. Because I expect much more leftovers from the rest of the collection, I estimate that my tradelist will contain over 1,000 samples. Although most of them are much less than the standard 30 ml, I know many collectors who collect small amounts so I am looking forward to the next trades. I will post an update to this post when the counting will be complete so stay close if you’re interested in a trade.

We met Diotima and Bernard for the first time last year in September at the 7th German sand meeting in Black Forest. I think they are the most cheerful and open-minded people we ever met among sand collectors. It was a honor to meet them and we enjoyed a lot sharing the evening in the first day of the sand meeting. Several days ago Diotima wrote me a very kind email and sent me several photos of her collection. I already added one photo to my ‘collection of collections‘, here it is:

Diotima’s sand collection

Thanks much for the nice words Diotima, as well as for the photos. We hope to see you soon again, latest at the next sand meeting.

Last days I came across this great clip on youtube about sand saltation. The author used a macro lens and captured on digital support the movement of sand particles on desert dunes. An extraordinary perspective of something rather ordinary… enjoy watching!

This is an old post that I wrote some months ago but never published yet. The story is about our holiday in Portugal in August 2010 when we drove along the Atlantic coast from Lisbon up to Viena do Castelo in the north. The holiday was not just meant as a sand collecting trip and we have lot of fun walking along the narrow streets of some medieval towns and enjoyed a lot the local food. But such a long coast (almost 1,000 km for the continental Portugal) almost invited us to take a sand sample. We returned home with about 25 samples that could have been much more but we just did not want to transform our holiday into a stop-and-collect action.

In the photo above you can see however where did we take sands from (on the left I have some photographs from the locations marked with yellow on the map). Nowadays the collection at Sand Atlas counts 133 samples from Portugal that cover 16 out of 20 country’s administrative divisions (following regions are still missing: Bragança PT-BA, Évora PT-EV, Portalegre PT-PA and Viseu PT-VI).

Ernestus Barsa, another sand collector from Austria, reported on his website about a street in Vienna called Sandgasse (Sand Alley). Just by coincidence I drove yesterday to a small town in the surrounding of Dresden and found the Sandweg, which can be translated approximately in the same way – the Sand Alley. I just found the name funny, here’s the photo:

Last weekend we joined the 7th German Sand Meeting in Lauterbach, Black Forest area. It was the first time we took part in such an event and we will never regret it. For long time we didn’t decide whether to go or not since it supposed to drive about 700 km way and back but we just decided to give it a try. At the meeting we met lots of interesting people sharing the same hobby, joined a one-day excursion and traded sand – what else can you wish more?!

Group photo at the 7th German Sand Meeting in Lauterbach, Black Forest

DAY 1

On Saturday, 3-Sep-2011 we met at the hotel and got to make the first contacts. Everybody looked very excited about the days to come and we gladly exchanged the first ideas (the bus was almost one hour late so we had plenty of time to do that). Around midday we left Lauterbach and after half-hour ride we reached the first destination: “Mineralienhalde Grube Clara”, the biggest public mineral stockpile in Europe, as you can read on their homepage. The place is just an intermediary deposit station for the baryte and fluorite ores that are extracted from the nearby mine and transported 13 km away for further processing. The material extracted from the mine is temporarily discharged onto the site where hobby collectors search for their rare minerals.

We had great fun searching for special sands and despite the killing heat we could say that this was an unique experience for any of us. The sands collected must be washed in order to reveal the mineralogical secrets and I just can’t wait to do that…

From the Grube Clara we continued our journey to the second spot of the day, a stone pit very close to the French border. The quarry of a volcanic origin consists of some reddish tuff covered at the top by sedimentary layers. The interesting part was the presence of some “balls” of material of different consistency and color which had a high concentration in olivine, highly appreciated therefore by all sand collectors.

After getting some samples from the material fallen down at the rock’s bottom we returned to the hotel and had a nice joint dinner.

DAY 2

Sunday was the “Dutch trading day”, maybe one of the nicest sand experience ever: each sand collector received a table for the display of his/her exchange samples and everybody was free to take as many samples from the other collectors as wanted, without any restrictions or conditions. Although the most interesting samples disappeared very quickly, I even didn’t know what to chose first: hundreds (if not thousands) of sand samples from different locations just asked to be taken home. I carefully selected several sands that I didn’t have in my collection but soon I found myself with more than 100 samples in my hands. Meanwhile, my own samples disappeared too very fast and only 15 samples remained out of 170 (great feeling to know that my sands were considered valuable by so many people). Well, just before the end when most of collectors already packed their stuff away, a Dutch collector just came to me and offered me a huge box with at least 200 sands from his trips to Spain and Portugal (Jan, if you read this post, please receive my deepest thanks!!!)

All in one, we had great fun during the whole weekend and couldn’t wait to return home for processing the new sands. Now we have plenty of new ideas for our next sand book whose first edition was, by the way, a great success too. We actually did not intend to sell it but three people asked for a copy despite the rather high price so we have now to order some more copies.

At the end of my post I’d like to thank especially to Hans and Frank for their great efforts in organizing this event, to Hermann from the German Sand Museum who run the whole meeting under his patronage, as well as to all other sand collectors who welcomed us and shared with us their experience and love for sand. Last but definitely not least a big hello to Diotima and Bernard whose joy for life did greatly inspire us (Bernard, I wish we’ll have a small Helmut too someday…

Today an old dream became reality: the World Atlas of Sands came into life in printed form!!! The book is simply called “World Atlas of Sands” and it has the suffix “Vol. 1″ because it is part of a series of more volumes with the topic SAND. This first book is just a compilation of 140 macro photographs as you can see them on the photography section of my website. The next volumes will include more text and will be dedicated to various “sandy themes”: country profiles, sand mineralogy, sand colors etc. Anyway, I feel enormously happy for the first edition, even if the book has been issue in… one exemplar only.

My first book about sand…

The book was printed as “photo book” by a specialized company. What is to mention here is the great print quality and the exceptionally  quick delivery. I uploaded the PDF file on Sunday evening (I made the layout by myself) and the book arrived today, Tuesday morning (execution and delivery in less than two days!!!!). The quality is amazing, I can highly recommend Saal Digital for printing your own photo books. And here is an example of the inside pages as exported image from the PDF file:

Example of Inner pages

Today I just ordered a new book about beaches of the world after I saw a review note on Michael Welland‘s great website. The book is called “The World’s Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shorelines” and, as I couldn’t find it on the Amazon.de, I ordered it from the US store for about 20 EUR including taxes and shipping. I am looking very forward to it, delivery time shall be somewhere between September 25 – October 14.

This is the book’s description on the University of California Press website:

“Take this book to the beach; it will open up a whole new world. Illustrated throughout with color photographs, maps, and graphics, it explores one of the planet’s most dynamic environments—from tourist beaches to Arctic beaches strewn with ice chunks to steaming hot tropical shores. The World’s Beaches tells how beaches work, explains why they vary so much, and shows how dramatic changes can occur on them in a matter of hours. It discusses tides, waves, and wind; the patterns of dunes, washover fans, and wrack lines; and the shape of berms, bars, shell lags, cusps, ripples, and blisters. What is the world’s longest beach? Why do some beaches sing when you walk on them? Why do some have dark rings on their surface and tiny holes scattered far and wide? This fascinating, comprehensive guide also considers the future of beaches, and explains how extensively people have affected them—from coastal engineering to pollution, oil spills, and rising sea levels.”

With almost 6,000 km of coastline (about 2,000 km on mainland and another 4,000 km on the islands), Croatia is a great destination for sand collecting freaks. We just returned from a three-week holiday in which we drove 4,900 km and camped in several places along the Croatian coast. Of course I had my collecting kit with me all the time: zip-lock baggies of different sizes, GPS and a small log book. However, I was surprised to notice that Croatia almost has no sandy beaches at all. The beaches are usually located in small coves at the foot of limestone cliffs and are mostly rocky or pebbled (due to this fact, the water is extremely clean and transparent).

Typical pebbled beach in Croatia

But there are some sandy beaches too in Croatia. The website Beaches of Croatia is listing some of the best sandy spots where you can get a sun burn or new samples for your collection. Following their suggestions but also our itinerary I could gather about 20 new samples, some of them in bigger amounts too. Photos and more sandy stories will follow soon, right now the sands are drying and waiting to be filled in vials.

Sands collected in Croatia

Several weeks ago I received a sand sample from Istria, Croatia. Unfortunately I don’t have any more details about the location but the sample got my attention nowadays due to a small label that said: “Foraminifera”. So just from curiosity I made several photos and, indeed, there are plenty of small foraminifera inside! The photos below are just 4 mm wide so you can imagine the real size of the individual particles (click on the thumbnail to see the bigger image – real size: 8 mm width).