what is quicksand?

690 viewsOtherPlanetary Science

Honestly as a kid I thought that quicksand would be a way bigger problem in life considering how many TV shows and movies I saw that used it.

But basically, what is it, how is it formed, how common is it, that kind of stuff. I live on the US East coast so (to my knowledge) I’ve never encountered it

In: Planetary Science

19 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s basically just wet sand saturated with water, so mud, but not dirt mud, but sand mud. If you walk on it you sink up to a degree but you can’t sink too far down. Cartoons would have you believe you just sink entirely and are swallowed up but really you just stop sinking after a while because when you’ve displaced your body weight in quick sand you just stop sinking, just like water, but quicksand is much more dense than water, so instead of sinking up to your neck before you stop sinking you only go up to your knees or pelvis.

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