As I was sitting around in my living room on Sunday with my d he asked me if I knew why there were patches of black sand along the beach when the rest of the sand along lake Michigan is a light tan color. This is a questioned that I have wondered time and time again but never taken the time to actually look up. I guess that's what happens when you don't have access to the omniscient Google. People frequently have assumed that it is washed up oil and Ben thought that it was possibly from logs that had gotten washed up and slowly disintegrated "right in that spot". Nothing seemed to make sense and I just couldn't put it together. Today I finally took the time to look it up. The black sand is actually just made up of iron-rich matierial and a lot of it will even be attracted by a magnent. This is what Geologist C. Robert Reszka, Jr. has to say about the matter:
There is a lot of iron rich mineralization in Michigan. Specular hematite, Jaspilite (also called Banded Iron Formation), and various Iron rich shales were all mined at one time or other for their iron content.Their is still an extensive amount of these iron rich formations around and they are exposed to erosive forces. The sediment that is created from eroding those formations finds it's way, eventually, into the Great Lakes and is washed up on shore with the other sands on the beach.
Now I will finally have an answer for the next time someone asks me! (The picture was taken in the winter, so don't be thrown off by the snow)!
- Lizzie