Following on from yesterday's Microsculptures of beetles and such, as created by Levon Biss, I would now like to introduce you to the Microscopic photography of sand as created by Dr Gary Greenberg.
Sheffield artist Michelle Reddicliffe alerted me to this astonishing image. More on Michelle's own work below.
So next time you are walking on the sand remember that within this
Photo by jim gade / Unsplash
is this.
South Point on the Big Island of Hawai’i is the most southerly point of land in the United States and the source of this sand. These translucent green grains are olivine. At South Point on Mauna Loa’s southwest rift, the pounding surf erodes a forty-nine-thousand-year-old volcanic cinder cone made of olivine. As the cone erodes, the olivine crystals become beach sand. Very few beaches consist of pure olivine; however, if there is olivine in a sand, that indicates it is a volcanic region. The deep-red grain (upper left) is volcanic rock. Magnified 250 times.These tiny, glassy orange spherules originate from a fire-fountain volcano that erupted over 3.8 billion years ago. Apollo 17 astronauts discovered this “orange soil” on the rim of Shorty Crater in the Taurus Littrow Valley. Magnified 340 times.(TINY MICRO SHELLS) Microscopic shells are the size of tiny grain of sand (magnified 300 times).(SQUARE SAND) A square-shaped shell fragment is found amidst sand from Masaya, Nicaragua (magnification 80 times)MAUI SAND GRAINS ARRANGEMENT #2) This image is a handful of sand grains selected from a beach in Maui and are arranged onto a black background. The colors and shapes of these tiny grains of sand are surprisingly different and astonishingly beautiful, each with it’s own individual in character
And to conclude: Moon Dust brought back to Earth from the Apollo 11 expedition.
Check out more of the delightful and unexpected images at sandgrains where you can also enjoy microphotos of flowers and food.
Michelle Reddicliffe who is a blog subscriber and artist from Sheffield (UK) has just made a delightful video titled I'm Back.
Follow the link below and let me know what you think.
