GRAIN BY GRAIN: RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES AND SAND COLLECTIONS

In the Spring 2009, the University was offered a sand collection belonging to Francis Waldher, a recently deceased local resident. Waldher was a dedicated sand painter and the collection was in support of his avocation. Assembled during thirty years of travel, the collection consisted of over 200 two-liter samples collected from 200 different documented locations around North America (and Hawaii). Like other personal collections, Waldher’s was assembled with no scientific motivation and the only sample bias was wherever Mr. Waldher and his wife happened to be-he sampled what caught his eye without regard to a particular geologic question. Sand collecting as an avocation has a long history and is supported by its own society: The International Sand Collectors Society. The diversity and volume of the “Waldher Collection” offers opportunities for research in the forensic aspects of sediment sourcing and comparison, and in effects of geologic materials on human health.

The usefulness of silts, sands, gravels, and soils in forensic science is legendary: the Fusen Bakudan (Japanese Balloon Bombs) of WWII (Welland, 2009), the kidnappings and murders of Adolph Coors III (Murray, 2004) and Aldo Moro (Lombardi, 1999) are illustrative examples. Deciding if two or more evidentiary samples are indistinguishable, similar, or different is a primary goal of the forensic geoanalyst (Pye, 2007). Also, sediment fingerprinting (e.g. spatial source and sediment type) is a useful technique for determining the provenance of suspect materials in criminal and civil proceedings. Both efforts require the determination of fundamental discriminators such as color, modal mineralogy, size distribution, particle shape, surface morphology, plant and insect content, elemental and isotopic composition among many others. The presence and distribution of minerals with potential human health effects are also a major concern. How common are potentially hazardous materials such as asbestiform amphibole in the natural environment? Robust studies of these questions are aided by the availability of documented and maintained sand/sediment collections. The “Waldher Collection” (and others) offers unique access to documented sand specimens assembled from a sampling area that covers, quite literally, hundreds of thousands of km².