What is sand made up of

Dirt, eroded rocks from the waves, broken shells

Silica, if I'm not mistaken. Silica is a compound of silicon.

Incidentally, silicon is very similar to carbon atomically (or whatever). It's often been observed that silicon would work just as well as carbon as the basic building block of life (much more so than other elements), except that the compounds it forms are all stone. Whereas carbon compounds form various squishy/slimy/moist/whatever substances, once things bind with silicon it all freezes up into rock. But that's why you hear so much about silicon-based life as an alternative to carbon: it does all the same kinds of things as carbon, with that little (ahem) exception.

Sand is both a mineral, SiO2, quartz, also known as silica, made of one atom of silicon bonded to two oxygen atoms, and a grain size,

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particl…

quartz

made of silcon and oxygen

SiO2

Silicon DiOxide

@Stan Dalone
carbon and silicon r different

@oklatono... silica is not quartz .... quartz is silcon dioxide... a compound not single solid

Sand is mostly silica which is the main ingredient of... glass! so it's kinda like crushed glass, that why a lightning strike can create tubes or webs of glass called a fulgurite or something like that.

Generally? Tiny rocks. Sand on the beach is mostly comprised of silicone. The coarser it is, the less silicone it is.

rocks that were broken into tiny sand , over the past years. a lot of years .

tiny rocks and broken shells. fish bones...