WHAT IS QUICKSAND?
The physics behind these silent and hidden natural floor traps
WORDSSCOTT DUTFIELD
Firefighters inject quicksand pits with high-pressure water to loosen sediment and pull people free
I ndiana Jones, Lawrence of Arabia and even Scooby-Doo have all fallen prey to pits of quicksand. One step into these natural traps and adventurers slowly but surely sink down into the ground until eventually they’ve been devoured entirely. However, despite what Hollywood would have you believe, quicksand isn’t quite the all-consuming menace it’s made out to be.
Quicksand behaves as a nonNewtonian fluid – it acts as both a solid and a liquid. It’s created when sand or silt becomes saturated with water. When force is applied to the quicksand, it quickly changes from a solid state to a liquid one. Increasing the weight on the surface of a quicksand pit by just one per cent is enough for the sand to act like a fluid.