"The description of such a catastrophe is found in the Visuddhi-Magga, a Buddhist text on the world cycles. "When a world cycle is destroyed by wind . . . there arises in the beginning a cycle-destroying great cloud. . . . There arises a wind to destroy the world cycle, and first it raises a fine dust, and then coarse dust, and then fine sand, and then coarse sand, and then grit, stones, up to boulders as large as mighty trees on the hill tops." [link to en.wikipedia.org]

The text to me describes an increasing level of ionisation of the atmosphere, so dissociation of the surface material is occurring, the particles getting larger as the electric field intensifies. I can quite clearly see such a progression around here, and the excavated material still lies in very easily detectable layers of the different size grains, and the depth and extent of some layers of absolutely consistent, identical grain sizes, supposedly due to mechanical sorting in fluvial deposits, suggests to me a process much more like the description you provided. The large sand 'seas' in various parts of the world also exhibit such grain size consistency, which makes it desirable for silicon chip producers.

I've been explaining my findings to my tenant, who is a First Nations spirit guide, who has visited and lived on many reserves throughout north and central America, and the legends of such large scale events are common. One thing that puzzles me is how, if such events did occur, the observers were able to survive? It's almost as if they were seeing and describing these events from some safe vantage point. Does the fact that talk of 'star people' by many of the native groups is just an accepted fact suggest that some of them may have seen it all from a safe vantage point?
Anyway, my spirit guide say he thinks that the land has been speaking to me all along, and that I now can hear what it is saying, and it is saying that the events were indeed very energetic and intense, and not gradual and gentle. It is so obvious that I can not understand how the convention geologists get away with their present models. Just that nobody is paying close enough attention I suppose.