PSN-L Email List Message

Subject: Re: Student Question...
From: "Jan D. Froom" froom@.............
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 17:19:34 -0700


Thank you for the replies to our student question. Per Ken's suggestion, we'd like
to let the students pursue this a bit more by collecting sand from various beaches
around the world, and testing their hypotheses.

If any of you have access to beach sand, and would be willing to send it to us,
we'll let you see the results of the kids work.

Sharon Redford is the teacher, and she says they need about a 1/2 cup.
Mail to:
Sharon Redford
South Valley Junior High School of Science and Technology
385 IOOF Avenue
Gilroy, CA 95020 USA

THANKS again!   Jan

"Kenneth J. De Nault" wrote:

> I would commend the student for his hypothesis and ask him to propose some
> method for testing his hypothesis, such as examining the iron content of sand
> from Alaska.  You might also ask him to make a prediction concerning the iron
> content of sands as one goes toward the south pole.
>
> I would not tell him he is "wrong" but would encourage him to be a scientist.
> All of us "scientists" have proposed "wrong" hypothesis.
>
> Ken De Nault.
>
> P.S.  The "iron" content is most probably the mineral magnetite.  This is a
> dense, iron oxide mineral whose concentration is a function of many factors,
> among which is availability in the source rock, the energy of the transport
> mechanism, and the energy of the depositional environment.  As a dense mineral,
> it tends to be concentrated by the removal of the less dense, and generally much
> more abundant, silicate minerals.
>
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