Sand & geology
Navagio
What's in the sand
Navagio's sand is pale limestone gravel and fine carbonate, the weathered remains of the Triassic limestone cliffs that enclose the cove. The sand is noticeably brighter than surrounding beaches because it contains almost no silicate minerals — only dissolved and re-precipitated calcium carbonate.
References: source 1
Predicted regional composition
Q-F-L (quartz, feldspar, lithic) fractions sampled from the GloPrSM global sand model at this beach's location.
GloPrSM v1.0.0 (IJ_QFL). GloPrSM is calibrated on modern river sand; beach sand in the same watershed is a reasonable proxy but not identical.
Got a close-up photo of the sand here?
Take a picture with a coin for scale and send it over. We're building a global grain-photo library and this beach isn't in it yet.