galexander,
here are my comments on your first points. On each of them you are quite simply completely wrong.
The orthodox view is that sand particles are crystal grains that have fallen out of crystalline rock due to weathering. But if this is so then why do sand particles not come in an array of vastly differing sizes? The grain size of granite for example is huge whereas for other rock the grain size is far smaller than the average sand particle.
Sand particles do come in a full range of sizes, from very fine to very coarse. By definition particles any larger, or smaller, are not sand particles: the larger ones are gravel, or granules, the smaller ones are silt. More than one scale has been proposed for these sizes. Udden (1914) specified diameters from 1/8 mm to 2mm, Wentworth (1922) from 1/16mm to 2mm. Many sediments, from dune sands to offshore bars, turbidites to river point bars, and dozens more, contain sand particles covering these ranges.
You made a laughable criticism of scientists in their ivory towers: it is clear you have never met a geologist. Now before you accuse me of too readily accepting what I have read in a book may I point out the following? I spent more than a cumulative period of four months geological field mapping in a variety of locations in the UK examining first hand a variety of sandstones from the Torridonian of NW Scotland to the Cambrian quartzites of Shropshire; the Old Red Sandstone of Bute to the Calcareous Sandstone of Ayrshire. Set aside that mapping field work and I have examined sandstones, in situ, on four continents, ranging in age from Pre-Cambrian to Tertiary, from tropical jungles, through North African deserts, to Arctic tundra. Beyond that I’ve personally collected and examined well samples representing in excess of 150,000’ of sediment, a substantial portion of which were sandstones. And beyond that I have studied well logs for hundreds of wells, where once again sandstones have been present as an important rock type. Everything I have seen supports the interpretations and conclusions recognised by the experts for over a century.
In short, your first observation is completely wrong. Will you now acknowledge this?
You go on to mention the grain size of granite, which is certainly a coarse grained igneous rock. But the majority of grains in most granite would fit comfortably within the scales of Wentworth and Udden. Equally, particles derived from finer grained rocks fit neatly into the scales as very fine sand, or silt.
In short, your second observation is also completely wrong. Will you now acknowledge this?
Further if sand comes from crystalline rock then we ought to be able to see this happening. For example why aren’t weathering crystalline rocks rough like sand paper to the touch and why do we not see piles of sand at the base of cliffs formed from crystalline rock?
This is exactly what we do see when the grain size and composition of the rocks and type and combination of physical and chemical weathering is appropriate.
Ferromagnesian minerals such as olivine, pyroxene, amphiboles and the plagioclase, and to a lesser extent orthoclase, feldspars are comparatively ‘soft’ so that they will weather, providing the matrix in which will be embedded the more resistant minerals, primarily quartz.
I live a few miles from a major granite body in the Scottish Highlands. Walk up the slopes to one of its peaks and one see the stream beds and footpaths awash with coarse quartz sand grains, weathered from the granite. Look at a ‘cut’ made by a minor landslide and one can view the transition from solid granite, through weathered material to a clay soil rich in quartz grains.
Look in the research literature on this and one will find endless examples.
In short, your third observation is completely wrong. Will you now acknowledge this?
Will you also now acknowledge that you have never studied rocks in the field, or that if you have done so, it has been with blinkered eyes? If we cannot agree on these fundamental points, established by many millions of observations, then there is no point in proceeding any further to the more complex considerations relating to silica solubility, colloid chemistry, reaction coefficients, the distinctions between silica and quartz, etc.