Quicksand is a lie.

Douglas Rushkoff wrote a bit today wondering why we never see quicksand on TV anymore, and someone left a very informative comment bursting all the fear I ever had as a child that one of the Sabre Riders wouldn't make it out of the quicksand if someone didn't throw them a rope:

Discovery's fantastic science geek show, Mythbusters, actually just tested the "killer quicksand" theory in an episode last fall. (The show was dedicated to well-worn Hollywood death techniques. They also tested the ol' electrocuted by an appliance falling into a bathtub method, which is indeed deadly, as it happens.)

Quicksand is essentially sand or dirt infused with so much underground water that it turns to a sludge into which a victim theoretically sinks slowly, eventually being consumed. So the Mythbusters first tested the buoyancy of various types of sand using a bucket with water being pumped in from the bottom. They discovered that the more coarse the grain, the more buoyant the quicksand, and the less things sink.

So, in Mythbusters fashion, they purchased a couple hundred pounds of the finest sand available, and prepared a 10ft-high vat of it with water infused at the bottom by fire truck hoses.

Long story short, you don't sink. They'd sink down to maybe their thighs and stop, even in this ideal, artificial environment. The reality is that anything you add to water, no matter how fine, will make it more buoyant, not less. The sand holds you up.

Summary: Tarzan and Daniel Boone were liars, and you can traipse the world's sandiest expanses with impunity. Worst case scenario, you lose a shoe.

Now, as for the cultural implications... I'll leave that up to you.

cb

Cheryl Botchick • 02/22/05 07:30am

Of course, this still doesn't explain how, in an episode of "Captain N: The Game Master" where a pool of quicksand was actually the secret entrance to Bayou Billie's underground lair. I remember being especially miffed that the quicksand was just floating there on the ceiliing. And of course, what probably pulls people in is really the tentacle monster that lives at the bottom, which really should now better than to leave trees with long vines growing around oh-so-conveniently.