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History of our Sand
The unique sand of the beaches in the Destin area is
among the whitest and most homogenous of the world.
Consisting of small quartz particles, this sand came from a process
involving the Appalachian Mountains and the Apalachicola River 20,000
years ago. At the end of the last Ice Age when the world temperatures
began warming and the ice caps began melting, large volumes of water
were carried by the rivers to the world’s oceans. The Apalachicola
River, rising in the Appalachians, carried water to the Gulf of Mexico
and continues today.
This water carried the quartz particles from the rock that forms the
Appalachian Mountains and deposited them in the Gulf of Mexico, just 125
miles to the east of what is now Destin. As the sea level began to rise,
these quartz sands eventually formed a new shoreline. The sands today
continually replenish and reach as far west as the Pensacola Pass, their
final destination.
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