Anybody who believes that sand is composed of uniform, rounded
grains of quartz whose main use is to make cement and glass will not
have read Michael Welland's recent book, entitled simply, "Sand". In the
book Welland sets out to answer the questions: Sand? What is it?
What use is it? Where does it come from? How did it get there? He
answers these questions as perhaps only an ardent enthusiast can, and
along the way he answers a hundred other questions cataloging the
properties, uses and beauties of this ubiquitous, essential, constituent
of our planet (and its immediate neighbors)

He describes the erosion of a grain of sand in the mountains and we
follow its progress to the sea along a river system, we track its path
from offshore sand bar to sand bank to beach until it is eventually
deposited in the ocean deep where it awaits its turn for eventual
relithification, uplift and cycle repeat. His description of onshore sand
dunes and sand seas is enhanced by personal observations from his
work with the British Geological Survey in Oman and his work in the
Sahara

With the help of "geological forensics" Welland explains that we can
unravel the history of sand assemblages stretching back over
numerous erosional/depositional cycles, while at the same time
admitting that that are still a few intriguing gaps in our knowledge that
remain to be solved

The style is modern-light, and the book is written with humour. It is
more Bill Bryson than university lecture and all the more enjoyable for
that. The extensive bibliography gives some idea of the research
involved, and judging by the interesting asides that remain, one can see
that one of Mike's main problems was deciding what to leave out of the
final manuscript rather than what to include. A book for the inquisitive
-minded amateur, it is obviously a labour of love