A 'sand pit' in the Sablon street

The zone between the hamlets of Oude Stok and Sablon forms a transition from the Demer valley to the Kempen sandy soils. It is marked by the row of dunes that runs from Averbode via Langdorp to Aarschot. For centuries, a trade route has been running on this 'ridge' between Aarschot and Diest, a part of the road from Mechelen to the land of Liège. The sand hills here were probably created in the last ice age by sand that came up from the periodically dry Demer valley. The hills should therefore be considered as river dunes . The dunes are nicely oriented in the East-West direction. When we leave the road in the Sablon Street, into the forest, we see an excavation of sand under the pine trees. Underneath the thin, dark layer of litter and humus, we immediately see the ochre-yellow sand. This sand is called 'Sablon' in the region.

What is Sablon?
In soil science, sand is a type of soil consisting of predominantly coarse sand with a significant percentage of clay particles (from 12% for light sand to 25% for heavy sand). In the Kempen, this name is more likely to be used for brown sand that emerges deep at one spade. In fact, it is just quartz sand with a very thin layer of 'rust' deposited on the surface of the grain. The ferruginous sand entered our soil through the weathering of the minerals 'olivine' and 'glauconite'. These minerals are mainly found in the deposits in the Diestian Sea eight million years ago.
Sand that was too loose was called 'papzand' in the region because it was not very suitable for making mortar.

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