Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On hidden coasts all over the world, you have the opportunity to find beautiful beaches: colorful fine sand shining in the sun, each sand is different color, but also crystal clear, this kind of beach is called glass beach.

Glass Beach in Hawaii/ flicker-Makuahine Pa'i Ki'i Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California, USA is probably the most famous and oldest glass beach ever. At sunrise or sunset, the colorful glass and blue sea will make the whole beach look especially beautiful, thus attracting a large number of tourists to visit.

Fort Bragg glass beach under waves/ wikipedia

Close-up of glass beach at fort prague/ wikipedia But more than 100 years ago, it was a huge seaside dump. In 1906, a large area of beach here was still in a deserted state. Since it was a reef beach with strong waves, few people usually came to it, and there was no scenery to talk about, so local residents designated this large area of beach as a garbage dump and continuously dumped garbage here. These garbage include wood, cloth, glass, electrical appliances, used cars, etc. In order to save space in garbage dumps, some combustible garbage is often piled up and burned. Therefore, it is often in a state of black smoke.

The beach was littered with garbage and smoke from burning./ hmdb.org Soon after, the first dump was filled in 1943, so a second dump was opened, and when the second dump was filled, a third dump was opened on the beach. The third dump was in use after 1949 and remained in use until around 1967. However, as environmental awareness increased, the state government closed the three dumps after finding new sites in the interior and removed the metal and non-degradable waste from them, leaving behind some organic waste and glass.

The organic waste quickly disappears due to biodegradation, but the remaining broken glass still tells the story of its decades as a garbage dump to passing people. However, after more than 20 years, people were pleasantly surprised to find that nature turned these originally dirty garbage into the most beautiful treasures. The continuous beating of the waves quickly turned these old glass bottles into round sea glass.

The sea glass mixed in the gravel of the beach reflects brilliant light with the sun, making this originally unknown garbage dump a famous attraction.

These sea glass beaches are now found in many places around the world, not just in Fort Bragg. For example, in Russia's Ussuri Bay, as we all know, Russians like to drink. This was once a garbage dump for storing wine bottles and porcelain. A truckload of beer bottles and vodka bottles were pulled here and piled up. The sharp fracture after the old wine bottle broke made it a dangerous area where no one dared to set foot. But decades later, the glass and china turned into beautiful multicolored beaches, found in Hawaii, Bermuda, County Durham, Morocco, Japan and many other places.

Glass beach map of Hawaii/ flicker

Glass beach on Bermuda/ flicker There are two actors behind the formation of this beach: humans and waves. In recent years, due to the intensification of human activities, people have thrown more and more glass bottles, porcelain and other wastes into the sea. These wastes float in the ocean and become the material source of glass beaches when they are taken to the right zone.

And then, where the waves are stronger, the waves will pound the glass against the rocks, first into sharp glass fragments, and then the glass fragments will continue to rub and collide with each other, becoming smaller and more rounded, and finally become pebble-like sea glass.

Glass beaches are still rare, but sea glass is everywhere. If you pay attention, you can find these beautiful little things everywhere on the beach (especially on the rocky coast, sandy coast will be more, may be difficult to find on the mud beach), and many people go to the beach to collect sea glass.

Sea glass gathered between reefs/ flicker

But these beautiful pieces of sea glass are evidence of our increasing pollution of the oceans. It is conceivable that in the future, there will be more and more glass beaches around the world. In the good direction, the composition of glass is no different from quartz. Glass garbage is at least a little better than plastic garbage. In the worst case scenario, the traditional yellow and white sand beaches will become less common as glass beaches become more common. Initially, there will be scattered sea glass on the beach. Then, the colorful color of the sea glass will quickly obscure the pure white or yellow. Finally, the entire beach will be composed of these sea glass. These ordinary landscapes today may become sacred places in the hearts of our descendants. They may look at them less and cherish them.

If you have a chance in the future, you can go to these beaches and look carefully. Maybe you can find a lot of sea glass.

https://shimo.im/docs/KwcYTjcvhHVTv3xk/

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Bringing Science Home (ID: steamforkids), written by Shen Mengxi

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