California, after we cover it in sand. Image Credit: via Unsplash |
According the US Census Bureau which keeps track of such things, the surface area of California is 423,967 square kilometers (163,695 square miles). Note that this number includes everything from land to water, but the water surface area of California is only 20,501 sq km (7,916 sq mi), which is less than 5% of the total surface area. Since this is not a large discrepancy, let’s keep things simple and use the big number under the assumption that we can cover all the water area with sand and not have it wash away.
Construction sand isn’t the typical sand you find just anywhere. It has to have a specific composition and consistency to make concrete possible. Here we refer to the class notes from a 2015 course titled “Concrete Technology” through the University of Washington. The section on aggregates gives a range of 1520 to 1680 kilograms per cubic meter (95 to 105 pounds per cubic foot). For this variable, the median will work well giving us 1600 kg/m3 (100 lbs/ft3).
Using the surface area and density, we can calculate the height of the sand over the surface area. This takes some equation manipulation to get us to the variable we need.
Part 1 of equation manipulation. Image Credit: Amanda Babcock |
Part 2 of equation manipulation, because one Post-it note is never enough. Image Credit: Amanda Babcock |
Let me just scribble that out on a Post-it real quick. Image Credit: Amanda Babcock |
So, if we were to take all the sand used commercially in one year, it would cover the state of California about 0.0669m deep. That’s only 2.63 inches. While it's impressive that we could cover the entire state, that’s not very deep.
Bearing in mind that California is about 60% the surface area of Texas and less than 25% the surface area of Alaska, the sand would be even shallower in either of those states. But California is also 106 times the size of Rhode Island. Squeezing all that sand over the surface area of Rhode Island would result in a column over 7 meters (23 feet) tall...and some very upset Rhode Islanders.
A proud Californian in Death Valley National Park, one area that would not notice the extra sand. Image Credit: Jeremy Bishop, via Unsplash |
It’s also fun to note that California is about 25% desert, with the Mojave Desert making up the bulk of that. Would anyone notice an extra 2.63 inches of sand in the Mojave?
—Amanda Babcock
That's a lot of digits of significance for this estimate. I'd round 2.63 to 3, personally.
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