How many grains of sand is in the average desert?

Answer 1

If we assume for simplicity that all sand grains are the same size and spherical there are about 1 million three hundred thousand grains of sand in a given meter of desert. Instead of the average desert I said the Sahara. The Sahara has a area of around 9 million kilometers. We can do 9 million times 1k to get the number of meters in the desert. So I did 1,300,000 * (9,000,0001,000) and that gave 1.1710^18. That is around 1,170,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand. Assuming I didn't look over something, although I probably did, that should be the number of sand grains in the Sahara. But if you want to choose any desert you can just change the 9,000,000*1000 to correctly match the information of the desert. Also keep in mind that this does not account for the depth of the sands but only accounts for surface and near surface grains.

Answer 2

According to the University of Hawaii's answer:

There are seven quintillion five quadrillion grains of sand on all the beaches of the world. That's a 75 with 17 zeros following!

"75 with 17 zeros following" (7.5x10^18) is seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion. But what's an extra 495 quadrillion with so many variables in the equation?

Consider more possibilities...

With oceans rising and the deserts expanding, the question of grains of sand on the beach is kind of arbitrary. I think we would do better to ponder a more global picture: an estimate of all "sand" particles on the entire earth's surface, (including that which is covered by salty, briny, or fresh seas and rivers).

Of course "sand" varies by composition, but is defined by size of particle. Tough questions then arise regarding the unexplored ocean floor, which includes a lot of silt (the same composition, but different size per particle than sand). Perhaps we could correct for that based on volume of silt, (or gravel, for that matter), per grain of sand under the sea.

With massive erosion occurring due to water runoff and flooding caused by widespread deforestation, the intractability of the problem becomes as troublesome as estimating the number of stars in the expanding universe. Isn't that the analogy that captures our imagination, anyway - stars versus grains of sand?

But another answer is:

The exact number is not known.

The exact number can't be known to mere mortals. The number of grains of sand is constantly changing as rock is worn away daily into more sand and tons of sand are melted daily to make glass and other products. Then you come to the dilemma of deciding the point at which sand ground fine enough, when do you start to call it dust.

Answer 3

Apparantly this calculation tells you how they made up

that there are (aproximately) 700,500,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand on earth

(or seven quintillion five quadrillion for the likes of me)

What fascinates me though is that there are more atoms that this in your body, an estimated

7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Answer 4

Nobody has taken the time, as far as I know, to calculate how many grains of sand might be in a desert. It would be a total waste of time for a person to calculate this as the information would have no useful purpose.

Answer 5

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Answer 6

1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Answer 7

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Answer 8

To many to count

Answer 9

5,000,000,000,000

Answer 10

At least 3.