[Nhcoll-l] Sand collection database?

[James and Judy Bryant]

Heather/All:

Are there perhaps publications linked to this collection? Is there a name of a primary researcher connected to the samples?
Such collections often have enormous research and interpretation potential, yet it's hard to protect them from de-accession or discard.
I faced a predicament regarding a collection made from many places, including the dry valleys of Antarctica. As I recall out of 50 or so samples, in years prior most were discarded so that the jars could be reused. The only survivor was a jar of multicolored sand from the Valley of 10 Thousand Smokes! When researches wanting samples that might be comparable to Martian soils contacted me, all I had for them was a sad story.

James Bryant
SOJOURN Science - Nature - Education
Santa Fe, NM
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bryant-0598a940/

On Nov 5, 2025, at 11:10 AM, Utrup, Jessica <jessica.bazeley at yale.edu<mailto:jessica.bazeley at yale.edu>> wrote:

GRSciColl might be a good spot to get this started (https://scientific-collections.gbif.org/). You can enter general information about the collection and contact information. It’s a low lift to make the collection discoverable.
~Jessica

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> On Behalf Of Callomon,Paul
Sent: Wednesday, November 5, 2025 12:55 PM
To: Heather Ouellette <houellette at fau.edu<mailto:houellette at fau.edu>>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Sand collection database?

I’d be interested to see what folks say, as we have just such a collection here at the Academy too. Apparently sand collecting was a thing among the jet set once.
One use some of the samples have been put to was in a study of rheology (resistance) related to the hairs and spines on terrestrial crustacean legs. Sand of various grain sizes was used to see whether having such things on their appendages enabled crabs to run faster uphill. I never saw the results, though…

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
callomon at ansp.org<mailto:callomon at ansp.org> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170
President of the American Malacological Society for 2027


From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> On Behalf Of Heather Ouellette
Sent: Wednesday, November 5, 2025 12:39 PM
To: Natural History Collections Listserv <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Sand collection database?


External.

Hello all,
Recently I found that there is a collection of sand samples at Harbor Branch. There are almost 1,000 samples, from beaches on all 7 continents. All were collected from the 1960s through mid 1990s, by multiple individuals, and collated by Orville Brim. Most of them have detailed information about the collecting localities.

This is a unique collection, but I’m not sure how to share this collection and its data with the scientific community. Are there online geology databases like Symbiota/GBIF? Would this data be of use or interest to anyone?

Heather Ouellette
Research Collections Manager
FAU Harbor Branch


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