Nitty Gritty: The Wonder & Glory of Magnified Beach Sand

By Steve in Art & Design, Geography & Travel, Nature & Ecosystems

Dazzling in their variety and as individually unique as snowflakes, the sands of the world’s beaches take on a whole new level of awesomeness when viewed under high magnification.

Dr. Gary Greenberg has been doing just that since 2001 using high-definition, three-dimensional light microscopes of his own design.

My Grains

(image via: Joeysplanting)

It’s said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes the beholder’s eye needs a little help to observe what smallness of size has heretofore kept hidden. Such is the case with beach sand, billions and billions of grains of which lurk on the world’s seashores oblivious to the crabs, seagulls and sunbathers who walk upon them unaware of what lies beneath.

(images via: DailyMail UK and DJ Mick)

And yet, as Dr. Gary Greenberg states, “as we walk along a beach we are strolling upon thousands of years of biological and geological history.” Indeed, while beaches themselves are constantly being built and rebuilt through the action of wind and waves, the formation of each individual grain of beach sand is a labor of love acting through time and tide.

(images via: Sandgrains.com and Gigazine)

Greenberg (above) knows a bit about sand… bit by bit, as it were. Since 2001 he has been photographing and documenting exquisite photomicrographs of sand grains, flowers, food and more using high-definition, three-dimensional light microscopes he invented and developed in the 1990s. Professor Greenberg is currently the director of the Microscopy & Microanalysis Laboratory at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy in Maui, where he enjoys ideal access to the island state’s wide variety of sandy beaches.

Microcosmic Menagerie

(images via: Sandgrains.com)

If one considers that sand grains are simply smaller versions of the boulders, rocks and pebbles they originated from, then it’s not too much of a stretch to accept that a large percentage of beach sand grains were once part of much larger seashells, corals, sponge skeletons and other calciferous organisms.

(image via: Gigazine)

In some locations these tiny remnants of marine life make up the majority of sand grains, and yet they only attract our notice due to the pink or white tint they impart to the sand. We say it’s “pretty”… but up close it’s beautiful.

(image via: DailyMail UK)

Scattered among sharp-edged and rounded stone one can spy honeycombed coral nodules, spiky sponge spicules, fragments of striped seashells and finely polished sea urchin spines. Chiseled down to size through the action of endless ocean waves, these fine grains exhibit an almost jewel-like appeal – eye-candy, as it were.

(images via: Gigazine and Wikipedia)

Those jagged grains that look like some new sugar-coated cereal? They’re not – though they may appear to be what one imagines starfish larvae might look like, these 5-pointed objects are actually the calcium carbonate (CaCO3) shells of foraminifera, tiny one-celled sea creatures abundant in the world’s oceans.

Fire & Icewater

(images via: Gigazine and Sandgrains.com)

Though sand grains formed from marine life remains are wondrous in their near-fractal reductive geometry, let’s not overlook the inorganic quotient of beach sand. Often of volcanic origin, these often colorful grains typically are carried down to the seashore by erosion of the very volcanoes that thrust their calderas above the waves thousands or millions of years ago. The volcanic sands of Hawaii shine under Greenberg’s microscopic spotlight, predominantly with the warm green tint of olivine crystals and semi-precious peridot.

(images via: Sandgrains.com)

Professor Greenberg doesn’t always look down (though we’re glad he does), and his pursuit of sand grains in all their microcosmic magnificence has taken him off the planet entirely, to the Moon.

(images via: Sandgrains.com)

Do lunar seas have beaches? Not as we know them, Jim, but our nearest celestial neighbor has sand in abundance. Greenberg’s images of moon sand grains illustrate the effect of waterless erosion over not just millions, but BILLIONS of years.

(image via: DailyMail UK)

Ironically perhaps, one particular Earthly sand grain evokes the most universal of sentiments: that would be the pale blue dot in the image above, magnified by Dr. Greenberg in order to reveal its intricate organic geometry. Once again fractals come to mind when contemplating this reduced remnant of a marine snail shell. The mathematically precise spiral invites comparisons to hurricanes, galaxies, even the eye of God himself… all in the space of a single millimeter. Forget that old cliché, size doesn’t matter – the way you look at things does.