Sand traveler in sandstone

2003/11/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Geologia

After two investigations, geologists come to a striking conclusion: The western sandstone of the United States was created by sand from the eastern mountains. That is, the geology of the states of Utah and Arizona is not the result of 'reprocessing' the material of the ancient Rocky Mountains, but there were in North America giant rivers that dragged the sand of the Appalache mountains through their currents.

This idea has been deducted from the two analysis of sand. The first, which has studied the disintegration of uranium in the sand, has shown that this sand is about 1.000 million years. In the second, it has been investigated the helium that has trapped the grains of sand to know when these grains were put in contact with the air, a sandstone that appeared more than 500 million years ago. These data also coincide with other datations of the Appalaches, so the geologists consider that the sand was formed in the east and later reached the west.