CoLoRed SanD BEaCHes

IceLand
Icebergs from the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon wash ashore, black sand beach in Iceland
Hyam’s Beach (New South Wales, Australia)
The startling white sands of Hyam's Beach, in New South Wales, Australia, the whitest sand in the world
Pink Sands Beach (Harbour Island, Bahamas)
Pink sand at Pink Sands Beach, Harbour Island, Bahamas
Pfeiffer Beach (California, USA)

Kaihalulu (Maui, USA)

Papakolea (Hawaii, USA)

Ramla Beach (Gozo Island, Malta)
ramla bay orange beach 2
Why have beach sands different colours?
Little fragmentes of rocks and minerals, eroded and carried down to the beaches by rivers, make up the color of the sand. For example:
  • In Hawaii black sand beaches come from eroded basalt, (which is cooled lava from the volcanoes); black sand beaches can also be made of hornblende or biotite mica. 
  • Also in Hawaii, on the southern tip, its green-sand beach is made of olivine, an igneous mineral present in basalt.
  • White beaches can be made of quartz and on tropical beaches, pulverized coral skeletons (composed of the mineral calcium carbonate).
  • The pink-beige fragments are usually feldspar.
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