COUNTY SLIGO
SEO CONTAE SHLIGIGH
2002 A.D.

 
EXPERIMENT NO. 12: MAKING SAND
As rocks and stones move, they brush off each other and wear each other down. The little bits which come off are tiny "chips off the old block" and are called sand.
(Save this page, edit the Date and the Laboratory entries, and  print it out. Then do the experiment.)
Laboratory: Stokane National School
Date: 27th March 2002
Objective: To investigate how sand is formed
Apparatus: Two stones, sheet of card.
Method: Rub two stones together over a piece of card and little flakes of stone will drop off onto the card.

Stones making sand
LINKS
Ballycastle O'Carroll's Cove
REPORT
We found a number of stones on the site and rubbed them together over a sheet of white card. Some chips came off the stones, and this was sand. We tried the experiment with different stones and found that some chipped away more easily than others. Sandstone was easily worn down, but limestone and granite were harder. Limestone is used on the road, and granite, marble and limestone are used for stone monuments
We went to Encarta and read up on rocks, and how they were formed. The underlying rock in our area is limestone, and there are boulders of granite all over Co. Sligo. These came from Donegal during the last Great Ice Age. We have a local legend called the "Mermaid Rocks". We found some fossils also in our area.

CONCLUSION

When stones are brushing together they wear each other away and sand is formed. It is likely that the hills of sand close to the school were caused by stones brushing together as they were moved during the Great Ice Age which ended 10,000 years ago. We use sandpaper to make surfaces smooth, because the rough particles on the surface of an object are worn away by the sandpaper.
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