Where's quicksand found?

I googled it but didn't get the type of answer I'm looking for which is a geographical answer.

 

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I tried to give you a funny answer as : it doesn't exist, but it is less funny when prove to be the correct answer:

From Wiki:

"In fiction

People falling into (and, unrealistically, being submerged in) quicksand or a similar substance is a trope of adventure fiction, notably movies. According to Slate magazine, this gimmick had its heyday in the 1960s, when almost three percent of all films showed someone sinking in mud, sand or clay, but it has since gradually fallen out of use. The proliferation of quicksand scenes in movies has given rise to an internet subculture and a fetish scene dedicated to the topic."

The real, existing quicksand has always water in it...

"Quicksand is a colloid hydrogel consisting of fine granular matter (such as sand or silt), clay, and salt water."

So quicksand as just sand itself seen in movies (mostly in the Sahara or in the West) doesn't exist.

 

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Anywhere artesian springs or pressurized discharges emerge under and through a sand or silt bed.

The sand is sort of floating, or partially suspended and lubricated, by the pressure of the water coming up from below.

Commonly, along the meanders of a sandy river flat at the base of a hill (that is feeding the spring underneath, providing a head for the water pressure).

It can be of almost any depth. Shallow is more common.

btw: Just checked wiki, and found out that it's salt in the stuff that causes the "grab" aspect - that causes the stuff to grip what has sunk in it, more strongly than simple mud. It does feel different - like a quick-setting cement or glue.

 

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A case a few years ago (I'll need to research a citation on it...) was one in which a man crossing the (clay) mud flats in Southern California had gotten mired.
The horrifying aspect is the amount of pressure can catch you off guard. He had sunken into the stuff only a few feet before his feet hit the bottom. He wasn't in danger of drowning, as his feet were now on solid ground, the problem was that no air could get in to replace the area his feet took up.

He was absolutely stranded and teams of men couldn't pull him out. In stupidity, they hooked him up to something mechanical (The stupidity was simple desperation caused by him suffering a medical condition that was greatly exacerbated by his situation resulting in him needing immediate medical care), I heard it was a helicopter, and tried to lift him out.

The bottom half of him stayed in the mud.

 

A similar effect is liquifaction and sliding of a sandbar.

This happened to a father and four sons walking along a river about 5 miles from my home many years ago. Their footsteps triggered a shift of the whole sandbar. They all went down and the father and the two oldest boys came back up and swam to shore. They recovered one of the bodies of the two youngest. Never did find the other, probably on the bottom trapped in sand. Very sad, every year for many years flowers were placed on the banister of a bridge near the spot. I knew the father, he was one of my old high school teachers.

 

Yes, yet they can't take away our sinking in the tar pits.

"...A devil's stovepipe is a hole formed when a tree that has been buried by an encroaching sand dune decomposes. Under certain conditions the bark will remain intact even after the core of the tree has rotted away. This cylinder of bark keeps the surrounding sand from collapsing in and thus creates a hole, an unexpected occurrence in such an unstable medium.

Depending on the size of the tree from which it formed and its surface visibility, a devil's stovepipe may be quite dangerous. Someone passing above a wide stovepipe may fall in. Moreover, the fall is likely to disrupt the structure of the bark which had kept the hole open, thus allowing sand to fill the hole above them. For areas with large stovepipes there is a danger of suddenly becoming buried under significant quantities of sand..."
courtesy:wikipedia

 

so his body broke in half? holy shit!!!

 

Are there any other places besides So-Cal where quicksand or something like it can be found besides tar?

 

oh ok so England huh. I'll have to head over there at check it out sometime. thanks. Hey is there a way you fight back at quicksand and like teach it a lesson sorta thing? What if you vacuumed it up?

 

I don't believe your story. Anything soft enough to sink into would be soft enough to flow into the space formed when they pulled him out.

 

As a geologist I can confidently say that movie-like quicksand is non-existant. The human body is not going to either sink or be pulled down by a substance that is even a little thicker than water.

The ground can give away but this is usually from natural water sources flowing through bentonite clays, etc. Again, you would not sink. The energy of falling might dunk you under but you would pop up like a cork.

 

Try playing with clay.

I was not talking about "quicksand" which is fluid and soft-ish...

You never walked in really elastic mud and got your boots stuck? I have- the stuff pulled my boots off my feet (By boots, I mean as in Galoshes).
I don't fault your skepticism as it is an incredible sounding story, but nonetheless, I'd never heard of a Devils Stovepipe either (and that sounded pretty incredible) until someone posted it above.

Tore would be a more effective word.

 

I have ventured into mud flats in the Chesapeake Bay, which has silted up in many places, as part of an environmental summer camp I attended. The mud was up to my waist. Although it did tend to suck your boots off, there is no way it would rip a man in half.

 

Ok, so if it didn't happen in a location on the other side of the Continent, it couldn't happen elsewhere where conditions are different?

I've walked in heavy snowdrifts, therefor any claims of troubles with ice and snow from Antarctica are therefor proven wrong.
Riiiight...

 

Technically speaking...

...not quicksand. It is rottening wood covered by sand.

 

Spidergoat do you agree with Neverfly's logic here?

 

What irks me isn't spidergoats skeptical questions; it's the fact that I cannot seem to google up the damn story although at the time it was such a big story.

Damnit.

 

I know what that's like.