The global pandemic has all of us re-thinking our daily lives.  I had to cancel (or at best postpone) a May trip to collect sands from New England beaches.  With my time at home, I chose to walk about my neighborhood.  While doing this I was always alert to opportunities to collect sand.  They would certainly not be as exotic as Cape Cod or the creeks in the Berkshires of western MA, but perhaps they could still be interesting.

One location I wanted to sample was in a small town park close to my home which contained a nice half-mile trail through the woods.  My home sits atop glacial lake sediments (or dunes created when the glacial lake emptied).  I have dug for fine sand there (Sand Times, vol 1 #1, pg. 2).  The surface geology map of western NY suggests this park might be outside the lake boundaries.  Might the sand there be different? Continue reading Ancient Glacial Loess →