I got to know Frank Winger more than two years ago when I was just discovering on the world wide web that I am not the only sand freak on this planet. Frank has just welcomed me on the arenophile community and I had with him the second trade in my whole sand collector history. Since then we keep close contact and I have always been amazed by his extraordinary dedication to this hobby. Extremely kind with beginners and always willing to help, Frank is just one of the most enthusiastic sand collectors I have ever met.

A small representation of Frank’s collection

But Frank’s passion is not just kept for himself, instead he created an online presence which attracts since 2002 thousands of visitors fascinated about his extraordinary patience in drawing country maps, marking exact locations of sand samples and nicely organizing everything in logical and easy to navigate menus. Among other characteristic parts of his hobby, Frank is using an unique system of labelling his sand containers in a “more sumptuous way” as he describes it by himself:

Labels for sand containers with detailed information about location of each sample

Besides other fascinating parts of his website I have always been fascinated by the country maps neatly showing the borders of first administrative units. Frank invested a tremenduous amount of work in accurately marking each sample on the map and emphasizing with different colour the administratives units which he’s already got at least one sample from:

Country maps with administrative units and samples’ location (the little red dots)

Just check Frank’s website and enjoy his large sand collection!

This year on September 19th the German sand museum just opened its gates to the public. This was possible due to the tremendous efforts of Ralf Hermann, the initiator and president of German Society for Sand Collecting (Sandsammlerverein e.V.). The housewarming party in Cramme this year was not just a coincidence: “behind the stage” was invested since 1994-1995, when Ralf did the first steps towards sharing his experience and passion with other sand collectors by building the first website dedicated exclusively to the sand collecting hobby. By years his collection grew in a steady-state rythm and today is reaching over 25.000 samples from all over the planet.

Ralf Hermann and his collection of over 25.000 sand samples (Photo: NDR)

The museum was opened in Ralf’s house and the preparations were intense until the last seconds before day zero: the walls had to be painted, the exhibits nicely ordered by themes, everything had to be perfect. Ralf printed even advertising banners and hung them all over the city – a good organised event requires professional PR and Ralf got it just right.

Advertising banners for the sand museum (Photo: Sandsammlerverein e.V.)

But the big day has come and the first visitors entered the museums doors attracted by the original idea. “Sand is not always just… the sand as we know it from beach and rivers” said Ralf Hermann in the opening and he did show it to everybody: industrial applications, art objects (such as the famous sand paintings originally made by native americans), objects from daily life, literature and, of course, the classical hourglasses. A newsletter is also available and it can be obtained by contacting Ralf Hermann at info@sandmuseum.de.

Should someone consider visiting the museums, this will be possible from Monday to Friday 12:00 am – 5 p.m., excepting Wednesday when the museum is closed. The address is:

An der Meesche 33
38312 Cramme
GERMANY

Tel. +49-5341-14422
Email: info@sandmuseum.de
www.sandmuseum.de

Yesterday I decided to change the look of my website and I replaced the old template with a more “high-tech” one. The next step is implementation in WordPress of a powerful but easy to handle photo gallery so that I can keep all the information at hand (so far the Sand Atlas and the Sand Blog were using two different software solutions).

I feel that the new design is a bit more dynamic than the older one and also the colors look more vivid now. The big challenge however is to bring into WordPress the whole image gallery hosting 1,300 (and counting) samples. I already have found one pluggin that might do the job but I am still testing it before the final release.

Later edit (24.06.2010): I decided to not include in the Sand Atlas blog all my 1,300 scans of sands since this would take a huge amount of time and server space. I also realised that my limited free time does not allow me to keep up the scanning rythm and hold my photo gallery up to date.

On the other hand, I have just started recently to photograph sands using a new technique and a new photo camera and the results you can see at Sand Microphotograllery (just click on the photo camera on the top right of the page). This section will be periodically updated but not all sands from my collection will be represented in there.

Feel free to download any sand photo for your personal use (save it to your computer for later view) and note that reproducing the imagery on this website in any way (including further publishing on websites, electronic or printed books, etc) is also allowed BUT ONLY WITH MY AGREEMENT and with clear mentioning the author and the source (“Catalin Stefan | www.sand-atlas.com”). Please write me a short email if you are interested in using any of my imges for private or commerial purpose.

Sometimes I have to remove various objects from my sand samples because they simply don’t fit through the neck of my vials. They are mostly pebbles of different sizes but also bigger stones, pieces of wood, shells or corals. However, I’ve recently got the idea of… collecting them and stopped throwing anything away! I also took a couple of photographs for you (the real width of the frames is about 4 cm):

Shooting small objects is always exciting and funny. I had to use my macro lens and build a small photographic tent from two plastic boxes covered at the top with a semitransparent sheet (sandwich paper actually). The light was provided from the top by two regular desk lamps, the role of paper being to filter the direct light and thus smoothing the shadows.

I guess even better results could have been achieved with three sources of light (two from the sides and one from above) but I only have two lamps so… here’s the setup of my small photo laboratory.

Yes, this is the origin of my sample no. 107 IL-HD. The place is located on the Israeli shorelines of Dead Sea: Ein Gedi Spa, an amazing oasis and tourists attraction in the middle of nowhere.

The place is overhelming you by what it’s written on the shield right at the entrance: it’s the lowest place on Earth, with 418 m below sea level. We’ve been there on August 2nd, 2007 when the thermometer indicated just 47 °C. It was incredibly hot. When getting off the car, the body had to adapt to an increase of two folds in ambient temperature (from 23 to 47 °C) and it felt like the blood gets out of the body through the boiling skin.

However, plenty of people seemed to enjoy packing themselfs with the famous Dead Sea sludge. This is said to contain an impresive amount of minerals and salts and it is sold in most of the shops in Israel as soap, skin softener, shower and bathing products and so on.

But my focus was not on sludge but of course on… sand. Collecting it was not a problem at all since it was plenty of it just everywhere around us. Trying to avoid the curious look from the tourists I quickly filled a half liter bottle and we took a few photographs around.

Among many others, this was an unforgettable experience in Israel and I am more than happy for being able to also get a sand sample from there. Trying at home to dry it out was an impossible task: the sand had so much salt in it that it purely adsorbed all the water from atmosphere and therefore it never got dry.

Article under construction!!!

A lot of people collect stones from their holidays and when they return home, the stones are being forgoten somewhere on a shell in the basement. I personally find the stones somehow… cold and inexpresive, even if they are picked-up from a spot of a great importance. But it’s a matter of taste that for me a grain of sand has a much stronger meaning, maybe also due to its reduced size. It looks like a big portion of human history has been squeezed in one single cubic milimeter.

Well, there are samples and samples… Most are coming from common places like a small river or a regular beach at the sea side but some are loaded with hundreds and thousands of years of history. That’s how I’ve got the idea of picking-up the samples originating from special locations such as archeological sites or ruins of glorious civilisations and list them on this blog. Once I’ll get a new samples it will be added here so please check this article often to see the updates.

To easy identify the sample’s location, I will describe each sand using the sample number in my collection (e.g. 921), the ISO code of country and first order administrative division (e.g. TH-PA), followed by the full description: Country, Region, City, Location, GPS coordinates. So here it goes:

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921 TH-PA
Thailand, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Ayutthaya, Wat Mahathat, 14°20’43″N 100°35’40″E

920 TH-PA
Thailand, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Ayatthuya, King Naresuan The Great Palace, 14°20’43″N 100°35’40″E

Ayutthaya is the ancient capital of the Siam kingdom, founded by the king U-Thong in 1350 and distroyed by the Burmese army in 1767. The ruins of the ancient city form now the Ayutthaya historical park, which I visited on the October 30, 2008. The park is huge and due to limited time available, I could visit only 4 temples in a half-day trip by bus from Bangkok, with Wat Mahathat being the final stop:

869 TR-AL
Turkey, Antalya, Side, Site of Apollo Temple (Pamphylia), 36°45’50″N 31°23’14″E

848 DZ-TP
Algeria, Tipaza, Tipaza, Ruines of old city, 36°35’42″N 2°26’38″E

272 YE-MA
Yemen, Ma’rib, Baraqish, Ma’een ancient city, 16°1’6″N 44°48’16″E

239 PE-AM
Peru, Amazonas, Chachapoyas, Ku?lap ruins (Andes), 6°25’6″S 77°55’23″W

202 LB-BQ
Lebanon, Beqaa, Baalbeck, Old temple ruins (Bekaa Valley), 34°0’25″N 36°12’12″E

108 IL-HD
Israel, HaDarom, Massada, Walls of fortress (Dead Sea), 31°18’60″N 35°21’15″E

092 IL-HA
Israel, Haifa, Caesarea, Roman Hypodrom, 32°29’53″N 34°53’25″E

Caesarea was a city and harbor build by Herod the Great about 25-13 BC in honor of Emperor Caesar. The ruins of Caesarea Maritima (ancient name, called also Caesarea Palestina) lie on the shore of Mediteranean Sea in Israel betwen Haifa and Tel Aviv.

046 JO-MN
Jordan, Ma`an, Petra, Archelogical site, 30°19’19″N 35°27’39″E

The first major objective has been reached just a few days ago: the sample no 1,000 entered my collection. As per today November 15, 2008, my collection has 1,011 samples from 158 countries. I am very happy with the numbers so far and although not the quantity is my main target, it is a lovely feeling to know that 1,000 little vials hold, nicely arranged in a shell, the history of 158 countries from this planet. Since I collect small quantities, available place should not be a problem in the future and I like to dream of the day when the sample no 10,000 will be added to the collection.

The great achievement was possible due to a trade started some time ago and which was finished now. Because my tradding buddy also needed small amounts only, we were able to trade a huge amount of sands: over 100 samples in a 2 kg and 3 kg pack, respectively. We had a very exciting conversation by email before setting the trade and the collection has grown with 10% with only one trade.

About 100 samples arrived from South Korea in a 2.9 kg parcel (thank you, Christopher)

As my real start as sand collector began in Israel, I though about writing a few words about these particular piece of Earth who fascinated many civilisations and still continues to do so. Once you get to know it a little, you either love it or hate it but you definitely can not remain indifferent to its overwhelming charm.

This first part of my articles on sands of Israel refers to those sands locally known under the name of khalutsa sands, also spelled by some authors as halutza or haluza (see the samples no 0063, 0064 and 0065 in my Sand Atlas). In opposite to some other articles of mine about sand, the name khalutsa sands reflects here their geographical position and nothing about geology, although for many people it has a quite deep political implication as well.

Collecting khalutsa sands (sample no 0064) alongside the road 222

But let’s start first with geography: khalutsa sands region is located on the southern side of Israeli’s coastal plain and the north-western side of the Negev desert. It covers the beaches and the shore sub-regions delimited in the north by the Bsor River and the Sinai Peninsula. The area consists of about 80 km² of beautiful sand dunes along the border with Egypt, traversed today from NW to SE by the national road no 222 and neighboured by two other smaller sand areas: Agur sands and Shunra sands.

The Khalutsa region was of a particular point of interest since thousands of years ago when it belonged to the famous incense and spices trading routes between Mediterranean ports of (today) Gaza and their capital Petra on the Arabian Peninsula (today in Jordan) and from there to the far India. When the Romans tried to take control of these trading routes, the Nabataeans (ancient people controlling the routes) had to protect their trades and find secure ways for bringing the goods to Mediterranean ports. In order to avoid the Roman troupes, they’ve been forced to cross the very unfriendly desert of Negev and build there numerous fortresses and intermediate stops for their caravans. One of them is also Halutza, an archaeological site included today on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Basic archaeological activities in Halutza revealed the immense importance of the city during the respective era. According to Jewish Virtual Library, this is the place where a carving mentioning the first known Nabataean king was discovered, dating back from the year 168 BC. Further excavations conducted at the site under supervision of a specialized team from Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel, brought to light parts of a Byzantine kiln workshop, a Roman theatre (the only one discovered in the whole Negev desert) and a large church, all of them being found beneath a 2-4 m layer of sand.

Nowadays, the area south of the road 222 is completely deserted, with almost no vegetation at all. On the north, the Bsor region is a savannah-like area with large number of communities and the whole region serves as a training field for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Stopping the car for collecting another sample, we even met a highly ranked army officer who stopped his car too and asked us about what we are doing over there. “Collecting sand” – I said, and he looked at me with his ugliest expression ever. Coming from a man of his size, who carried a gun almost as big as myself, I wish I would have chosen another answer…

Entrances forbidden sign for IDF firing areas

Being so close to the border with Egypt and Gaza, and also training area for the army, the place is full of Israeli infantry, which makes the idea of crossing it just a quite interesting experience. This adds to the famous peace negociations at Camp David in 2000, when the Israeli former prime minister, Ehud Barack, offered the Palestinians the Khalutsa sand dunes in exchange for the Israeli settlements in West Bank. The offer was neglected by the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat due to the questionable quality of soils and one year later, the new prime minister Ariel Sharon ordered the construction of new Israeli settlements in the area as counter-measure to an eventual repetition of dunes’ negotiations.

If you search through my collection after the word “Heide” you will get a list of about a dozen of sands with this name. So what is that and why I have so many samples from the same place? Well, Dresden Heathland (Dresdner Heide in German) is the name of a huge district in the NE of my hometown Dresden, completely covered by forest and representing almost one fifth (1/5) of the entire city’s territory. And yes, that’s really huge, considering that Dresden is the forth biggest city in Germany (after Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne) with a total area of 328 km?, out of which 57 km? represent only the forest Heide.

This brings a major contribution to the green image of the city, one of the greenest in Europe (63% of its area is covered by forests and green places; and we like that a lot).

Dresden Heide offers great hiking routes for fresh-air lovers and we too enjoy it much, the whole year long. But during some of our later walks I have discovered one more aspect, probably unnoticed by the majority of other hikers: despite the typical forest soil, some paths in the forest are totally made of… SAND!!! Without the sand collecting virus in blood maybe I wouldn’t have noticed that either but with my “search-and-collect” status permanently activated, it was just a matter of seconds until the first baggie got fetched out of the rucksack.

This great source of sands dates back over 600 millions years ago in the early Precambrian age when thick layers of sandy deposits covered the region up to 1,500 m depth. Due to immense pressure and temperatures, part of these deposits were being slowly solidified and metamorphosed into granitic rocks (mainly granodiorite and syenite). The intrusive solidification process (below ground) is very slow when compared to the (extrusive) eruptions of lava and it took over 320 millions years for the rocks to show up at the surface, forming the so called today Lausitzer Granodioritplatte (Lausetian granodiorite panel). During the late Ice Age (between 230.000 and 130.000 years ago), the new granodiorite formations were covered with sands brought by the waters from the nearby melting glacier, forming from place to place real sand dunes up to 60 m high (some of them industrially exploited today – see photo below).

But not only the sands were my object of activity in Heide. The soils formed under acidic conditions on the granite beds are infertile and poor for agriculture. In Heide, as typical for most coniferous forests, podsoils constitute the main type of soils encountered, especially on the western side. Due to massive rocks weathering over time, in southern and eastern side one can also find loamy soils and along the Priessnitz river (main river crossing the forest) and the northern side – soils very reach in organic matter.

Maerl sands are deposits formed by the shells of some specific red algae living mostly off the Brittany and Ireland coasts: along the Atlantic coast of Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall.

Because it is primary composed of calcium and magnesium carbonate, but it contains also high amounts of magnesium, iron and other elements, maerl has been industrially collected since the 17th century in Ireland (dredged from the sea bottom and crushed to a fine powder) and used in soil amelioration applications (e.g. as fertilizer to rise the pH value of lime-poor soils). While the amounts harvested in the past were very high, they were extremely reduced in 1990s in Ireland due to ecological reasons (the algae just cannot keep the rhythm and the deposits became quickly depleted).

Although spread also on the Mediteranean coast, most of maerl deposits are concentrated on Brittany isles, being composed of three species of coralline algae: Lithothamnion corallioides, Lithothamnion glaciale and Phymatolithon calcareum. They are characterized by a hard part made by calcareous deposits contained in the cell walls and after repetead tidal action they form beautiful beds for local beaches.

In my collection I have 3 maerl sands so far from Ireland: 864 IE-GY, Scotland: 733 GB-HI (photo above), and Turkey: 556 TR-IB.

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Additional info on maerl:
De Grave et al. 2000: A Study of Selected Ma?rl Beds in Irish Waters and their Potential for Sustainable Extraction (PDF file, 3.28 MB).