Belgium

In Belgium, there is sand so pure that it is called white gold.

Millions of years ago, the Rhine and the Meuse carried sand into a warm delta land of swamp forests. The plants turned to peat, and acids from it seeped down through the layers of sand.

The acid dissolved almost everything except the quartz. What remained was white sand, more than 99 percent quartz.

Today the sand becomes glass, solar panels, glass fibre and even computer chips.