Sand grains magnified 110-250 times reveal each grain is unique.
The tip of a spiral shell has broken off and become a grain of sand. After being repeatedly tumbled by action of the surf this spiral sand grain has become opalescent in character. It is surrounded by bits of coral, a pink shell fragment, a foram (a type of protozoa) and volcanic material. Photo copyright Dr. Gary Greenberg.
A handful of sand grains selected from a beach in Maui and arranged on a black background. Photo copyright Dr. Gary Greenberg.
Every grain of sand in the world is unique when viewed through a microscope.
Sand magnified 250 times. Photo copyright Dr. Gary Greenberg.
Sand Magnified. Photo by Yanping Wang.
Sand magnified 250 times. Photo via Tumblr.
Sand Magnified Around The World
The glacially deposited sands around Lake Winnibigoshish, Minnesota, contain abundant sediments from the igneous and metamorphic minerals of the Lake Superior basin. A sample includes pink garnets, green epidote, iron-rich red agates, black magnetite, and hematite. Photo copyright Dr. Gary Greenberg.
Magnified grains of star sand from Southern Japan, made up of the calcified shells of tiny organisms. Photo by Richard Mouser Williams.
Beautiful Framed Seashell
Neat idea for decorating a beach house, or any space you want a splash of the sea. The frame is 14″x17″, and yes, it’s a real seashell. Sold by Art.com for $119.99.
Magnified grains of Star Sand. Photo by Richard Mouser Williams.
Puffy Stars: Star-Shaped Sand Grains from Okinawa. These tiny foram, a type of protozoa, secrete beautiful star-shaped, calcium carbonate shells, or tests. Photo via sandgrains.com.
Coral sand magnified one-hundred times using transmission electron microscopy, brightfield mode. By Dr. David Maitland, Feltwell, UK, microscopyu.com
Many grains of sand are tiny crystals (shiny, flat-sided solids). Sand from Zushi Beach, Japan, contains what looks like a sapphire crystal. The crystal is larger than the surrounding grains and has survived eroding because of its hardness and quality. Photo copyright Dr. Gary Greenberg.
Fragments of baby sea urchin shells, magnified one-hundred times. Biogenic sand, formed from the remains of marine life, is the major ingredient of many tropical beaches. Via popgive.com. Originally found at “popgive.com/2009/01/tiny-work-of-art-in-each-grain-of-sand.html”
A magnified view of the tropical beach sand from the Caribbean island of St. John (U.S. Virgin Islands). The grains include porous fragments of brightly-colored corals, minute foraminiferan shells, fragments of sea shells and shiny, star-shaped sponge spicules. Originally found at “waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0704b.htm”
Sand Photographer Dr. Gary Greenberg
Every grain of sand is a jewel waiting to be discovered. That’s what Dr. Gary Greenberg found when he first turned his microscope on beach sand. Gemlike minerals, colorful coral fragments, and delicate microscopic shells reveal that sand comprises much more than tiny beige rocks.
Author and photographer Dr. Gary Greenberg is a visual artist who creatively combines art with science. He has a Ph.D. in biomedical research from University College London and holds 17 patents for high-definition 3-D light microscopes. Dr. Greenberg lives in Haiku, Hawaii.
Dr. Greenberg has published two books:
- A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder
- The Secrets of Sand: A Journey into the Amazing Microscopic World of Sand
The Universe Of Sand
Carl Sagan famously remarked “the total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches on the planet Earth.” University of Hawai’i researches estimate that the total number of ‘all’ grains of sand on the whole planet could be approximately 75 billion billion. Scientists still believe there are more stars in the Universe.
Speaking of planets: If a grain of sand represented an entire galaxy; so each grain of sand, or galaxy, contains 100’s of billions of stars, you would need to fill six rooms full of sand to contain all the galaxies in the known universe. If you drilled a tiny hole in one of the grains of sand, ‘our Milky Way universe,’ that would be the area that we have been capable of seaching for planets so far. About 2000 planets have been discovered so far.
The Beauty of Nature
Oh Lord, how great thou are!
It is awesome
This is very very cool!!
This is fantastic. I love every bit of Science (except for those damned thermodynamics!) and I especially loved this read. And to the god commenter, yeah right.
I really like these beautiful images of nature magnified. I will look at sand with a more discerning eye now!
My first thought was: now I know what means amazing. Thank you for this work.
God bless you always!
This is mind blowingly beautiful!! Wow, such gorgeous uniqueness in every single grain. Who would have thought that grains of sand contain such an infinitum of distinctive exquisite creation? Thank you Supreme Creator indeed! Only pure intelligent design could construct such fractal micro/macro-cosmic design. I am so glad to know that from grains of sand, to vast entire universes, creation is boundless in its intellectual sculpting of existence.
These are really great. I need to strap a microscope to my camera!
Beautiful! Brillant, I wished I had a microscope to look at grains of sand. I never thought they could be magical.
BIG BANG THEORY,huh? HAH!!
i
fantastic, maravelious. Il like a lot.
WHAT A PROFOUNDLY BEAUTIFUL VIDEO! HARD TO BELIEVE THAT SUCH SMALL GRAINS OF SAND ARE SO GORGEOUS! I WILL NEVER LOOK AT SAND AGAIN WITHOUT THINKING OF THIS VIDEO!
Wow! The beauty of sand has been revealed.
NOT ONLY A WONDERFUL STUDY TO DISCOVER THE NATURE AND BEAUTY OF THESE SMALL GRAINS OF SAND BUT VERY EDUCATIONAL. I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO EVEN IMAGINED WHAT GRAINS OF SAND LOOKED LIKE.
I love what all the differents of sand is. Like the black sand coming from the lava, and red sand and white sand and the fish poop that makes sand.. Thanks for sharing your beautiful side of what sand does.. and makes..
What goes around comes around
WOW! That was magnificent! How much we miss by not knowing how and where to look…
Amazing.. never saw this, it is like ‘another world’. Thank you very much for sharing.
Kind regards.
Luisa
What a great GOD we serve! Only He could create such infinitesimal things. God is GREAT!
Thanks so much for your research. As another person said, I will NEVER look at sand the same way again!
Amazing, truly amazing!
Thanks for sharing 🙂 Now I don’t feel so bad having the name ‘Sandy’ or when a friend shortened it to just ‘Sand’
Thank you for sharing this magnificient beauty of nature …Thanks for reminding His words ,
Carl Sagan famously remarked ‘the total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches on the planet Earth.’ Love from one of the tiniest intellgent organisms on one of big blue marbles in the solar system,in the milky way,..in the universe:)
Magnifiques photos et découvertes qui donnent d’aller voir sur place!
Merci
It is wonderful how technology advancements, science and creativity expand the field of perspective we have on the universe. A very novel idea taking microscopes to a subject commonly disregarded as bland.
Thanks for opening my eyes!
I have a habit of collecting sand, rock, mud,…from places when I travel. I would like to use your magnifying camera to look into my collection to unlock the secret of the history of nature.
Thank you for sharing.
only god can create the beauty beyond all imagination regards terry
I will never see sand as an irritation or nuisance again. Bless you for sharing these remarkable photos and for your ability to recognize the glory of the infantesimal.
Amazing. Simply amazing!
I have always loved the beach and shells and now I love them both even more!!!!!!!
Thank you for listening to your intuition and following it to this remarkable discovery.
Just makes us realise how Great our creator is,The giver of life who cannot be compared to anything.
Thank you for sharing Mr Greenburg;)
I don’t have the words to say, but amazing.
Simple wonderful
Spectacular!
Time to buy a microscope! Amazing.
I’m headed to the beach….I’ll never view it the same again.
Why do people keep giving credit to god? Not to be rude, but it’s a combination of water degradation and friction upon other particles. And the source of the sand is terrestrial. It is beautiful, but it’s also natural. We don’t need an excuse like a higher power to have things like this in the universe. Not that I’m bashing, but i’m pretty sure if he made up our whole universe, he wasn’t thinking about making things pretty. They just happen to suit our human concept of beautiful… I mean he made the ugly, too, didn’t he? Why are we being so selective here…
So, are you trying to say that God only has relation to the spiritual and supernatural and not also to the physical creation? What is so odd about God using natural means, when he was their author in the first place? Where did your ‘human conception’ of beauty come from, and why do we uniformly hold something like these photos to be fascinating? As well, if you don’t understand the fall, you won’t understand the ugly. God didn’t make imperfection, but at the culmination of human history all fallen earth will be recreated into what it was meant to be (Check out the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans).
this is amazing stuff!!!!!!!
Just beautiful /each grain so different.. &
for sure another beautiful Jewel.
To think a grain of sand can look so beautiful——–
WHO KNEW. AMAZING. THX. PRAISE GOD
To Joanie.. You may certainly look at all of this and all of Creation as nothing more than an accident of the universe if you wish.. but I’m here to tell you that those that do.. those that refuse to believe that there is a design behind the brilliance we can observe with our own eyes.. all have one thing in common.. You lack a sense of ”AWE”. In other words you are not impressed sufficiently with what you see. If you were and you understood the magnitude of what is laid out before you..You too would have that sense of ”AWE” that makes it impossible to think that this is nothing more than accidental.
wOW And it is not a million years old because the world is only cuple thousend years
Thank you
now just imagine if each one of those grains of sand were a universe in itself populated with life forms like our little blue marble, earth? The mystery of it is fascinating! I enjoy musing about the human body in the same way…What miracles to behold. How great is the gift of life. And the gift of imagination.
Thank you for the moment in space and time that I experienced looking at and listening to this site. It allowed me to momentarily feel my connection of place as a being in the line from the microscopic wink of those grains of sand to the spiraling Universe.
Thank you for reminding me what I am, a part of all that is.
Very beautiful and worth watching.
These pictures are really amazing,more people should be able to see these tiny miracles of nature. BLC
just never ever thought about the beauty of sand and i love the beach even more now what jewels God gives us and even we are made all different and fearfully and wonderfully amen thank you
Guess little bugs need pretty things to look at too.