A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder
To see a World in a Grain of Sand.” When William Blake wrote Auguries of Innocence, he could only imagine just what microscopic vistas are held by the billions of sand granules that clog our toes when we walk on a beach. In A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder, Gary Greenberg takes us to exotic locales in our larger world to explore extraordinary beauty witnessed on a microphotographic scale.
Maui Sand: This is a montage of Maui sand grains floating above a beach. The image is made up of 27 different photographs put together in Photoshop. (magnification 40X) [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg
Star Sand: This star-shaped grain of sand is from a beach on Taketomi Island in Okinawa, Japan. The sand contains the remains of microscopic shells known as forams. (magnification 50X) [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg
Namibia: Sand from Skeleton Coast in Namibia, Africa, contains well-rounded black magnetite, garnet and possibly a tiny diamond near the middle left of the frame. (magnification 250X) [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg
Minnesota:
The glacially deposited sands around Lake Winnibigoshish, Minnesota contain abundant sediments from the igneous and metamorphic minerals of the Lake Superior basin….[More]
Six Sand Grains:
The tip of a spiral shell has broken off and become a grain of sand. This spiral sand grain has become opalescent in character after being repeatedly tumbled by the action of the surf. It is surrounded by five other sand grains made of (from noon clockwise): 1) a pink shell fragment; 2) a foram; 3) a microscopic shell; 4) a volcanic melt; and 5) a bit of coral. (magnification 200X) [Less] [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg