Sand production and foamy oil flow are the two key factors contributing to successes in cold flow production in Alberta and Saskatchewan. However, the two mechanisms have been studied and treated separately as geomechanics and multiphase flow problems, respectively. This paper describes special experiments that were designed to combine these two processes, and conducted to study their interaction. The experiments involved flow of heavy oil with no dissolved gas (dead oil) and heavy oil with dissolved gas (live oil) in natural, intact heavy oil sand cores. It was found that gas nucleation in heavy oil is the major factor in causing the initiation of sand production in oil sand. This finding is consistent with field observations. A mathematical framework for sand production in heavy oil reservoirs was developed based on the experiments' observations. This model includes the effects of geomechanics and gas exsolution phenomena such as strength of oil sand, stress distribution in the reservoir, solution gas diffusion, foamy oil gas, and fluid phase properties.