Sand under a microscope:

[demmiblue]

Link to tweet

[mercuryblues]

1. My favorites ore BevShots

They put liquor, wine and beer under the microscope.



https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/556deff0e4b0d2ea46e99ab8/1449605483163-JWONAZT04EYTBOWONXNW/Vodka+Tonic+Canvas.jpg?format=500w

[The Magistrate]

2. So Much Beauty In the World, Ma'am

Thank you for sharing this.

[Karadeniz]

3. The power of the ocean...

[PatrickforB]

4. Very cool! n/t

[cilla4progress]

5. It's all here for us

if we would just appreciate it!

[calimary]

6. DAAAAAAAYYYYUUUUM!

And the colors! And the shapes and textures!

Microscopic magic!

[bluecollar2]

7. There's a beach in Peru

Where you can see all of that without a microscope.

I'm just going to say it and I'm not saying where it is.

I just checked with a friend and she says it's still there...it's our secret and nobody gets to know.

Cecilia...es nuestro secreto.

[LoisB]

8. Such beautiful diversity.

[Hekate]

9. Beach sand is composed of whatever gets ground up by the waves. In these beautiful photos...

…I do see microscopic sea shells. Quartz, red agate, possibly amethyst, coral, and glass. The purple and white stripe bit in the upper left is a piece of sea shell.

I’ve been collecting rocks, shells, and glass my whole life, and rocks are favorite.

[wnylib]

13. I grew up on Lake Erie and used to collect

shells, glass, and stones every time we went to the beach.

Not all of the sand was local, from the fresh water lake. Each spring some sand was brought in from other locations to fill in what got eroded during the winter. So there were tiny little spiral shells from the ocean mixed in with broken pieces local mollusk shells and watered down, smooth glass.

I looked for places where I could get a whole, unbroken mollusk shell. Their interiors fascinated me as a child. They were pearlescent, like abalone (mother of pearl).

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

10. Was not expecting THAT - WOWZA! Thought it would be just

brown little bits the color of.... you know, sand!

[keithbvadu2]

11. Mother Nature does some beautiful work in many categories.

[Ferrets are Cool]

14. Amazing

[electric_blue68]

20. Wow, looks like a snow covered piece of machinery!

[MontanaMama]

12. I love this so much!

My favorite thing to do in the whole world is sit on the gravel beaches in Oregon and pick through rocks hunting for agates. I could do it all day forever. If only I’d known that sand looked like this! Holy buckets.

[3catwoman3]

15. How enchanting!

Thank you for posting this.

[Botany]

16. Much of the "beach sand" we see comes from coral

n/t

[Hekate]

19. Depends on where you are. I grew up on O'ahu, where the sands are from white coral...

If you look closely you can see ground up shell as well. All very white. On the North Shore one time I happened on a spot where the wave action seemed to sort the broken shells by size, and one gradient was composed of puka shells, the last bit of a cone to wear away.

(This is fun https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sand.html )

There is one beach on Hawai’i called Black Sand Beach, which is all ground-down lava rock, with some glittery volcanic glass inclusions.

Sand on the California coast is mixed, and again depends where you are. Very long ago I visited a relative down by Oceanside, where the sand was dark gray, as were the smooth rocks and pebbles that composed the beach. I was enchanted by the sound they made as they tumbled about, and how beautiful the wet rocks were.

I’ve been in two places where the beach was all pebbles of quite beautiful stones: white quartz, yellow jasper, red jasper, granite, and so on. One was on Crete, and the other in San Luis Obispo county.

I visited a cousin on Vancouver Island once, who had a home by a beach of incredible rocks, some huge as VW vans — so many there was not much sand to be seen. He said the variety was due to them all being carried along by the last glaciers, and ultimately deposited on that coast. I’ve always wanted to get together with a geologist and ask for a rundown on my collection (all portable size).

[PXR-5]

17. Very cool!

Being an amateur astronomer I have many telescopes, but always wanted to pick up a microscope.

Many for pond creatures, but that sand is amazing!
Just one more reason to buy one

[SergeStorms]

18. How much of that is micro-plastic?

I doubt there's very little pure sand left on earth, even in deserts. It's wind blown all over the planet now.

I hate to be the one to shit in everyone's punch bowl, but I wonder.

[SoFloDenny]

21. No way...

Wow! That's sand???? My brain just went kaboom.

[Martin68]

22. What you see in sand depends on where the beach is. The organisms and minerals will vary greatly

between a fresh water lake's beach, a tropical ocean beach, and a temperate ocean beach. It also depends on the geology of the landscape through which the rivers that bring the sand down to the beach flow. Sand on beaches near coral reefs is often largely composed of coral that has been eaten by Parrot fish and then excreted.

[certainot]

23. it's a graveyard!

[Better Days Ahoy]

24. Lovely! Thank you for adding beauty to my day

[JudyM]

25. K&R for this post and so many interesting DUer replies