Although most victims blunder blindly into quicksand, it sometimes seems that the merest touch of an extremity is enough to pull the unwary into its muddy and all-consuming depths like iron filings to a magnet.
In all cases, its most dangerous feature is its ability to suck people and animals down and drown them in a malevolent blend of sand and water. Science Fiction stories written before the Moon landings are also liable to describe thick layers of extremely fine lunar dust on the Moon's surface that are treated as functionally equivalent to quicksand. Quicksand is a common and deadly element of swamp, jungle, and desert terrain.
