Sparkly purple sand at Salisbury Beach. This is a natural phenomenon--it's garnet from the White Mountains that eroded into the sea and then was washed up by winter storms.

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Sparkly purple sand at Salisbury Beach. This is a natural phenomenon--it's garnet from the White Mountains that eroded into the sea and then was washed up by winter storms.
oh cool!
some of our local beaches are streaked with magnetite sand, which is fun to play with but not as pretty
you know how at fairs and such in the kiddie crafts section they have "sand art" where you can make jars full of painted sand
i think it would be cool to do that with real sand like that, from everyhwere. white gulf sand, tan atlantic sand, magnetite sand below, purple garnet sand, et cetera
I know this is a stupid question, but if you took a handful of that sand and melted it, would you get a garnet?
I have no idea really, but my guess is that it doesn't recrystallize nicely without specific conditions, so what you'd get from melting it and just letting it cool would be more like obsidian or just regular rock. But I am not any kind of minerals expert so idk. Mostly I'm just thinking about how you never see garnet jewelry that's been cast in a mold, so it must not be easy to do.