MacroPhotographs of Sands from Around the World Last edited, 9/10/2013. Last additions, 8/15/2013.
I took all of these photos in sunlight, sometimes using a mirror to provide side-lighting, with a Nikon D700s. I used an AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm 1:2.8G ED lens with the camera set on Automatic, or an ancient 55mm-macro lens with or without an extension tube (manual mode). Rarely I attached the camera to a Motic binocular microscope. I included a millimeter scale in most photos to illustrate the grain size.
The following photographs are close-ups of some of the samples in my collection. Currently I am working on the collection: adding global positioning coordinates to all of the labels I can; adding detailed information to the labels; and listing the samples on a master spread sheet I update and then upload frequently (see next page). Sometime during the 2013-2014 winter I hope to add a page that has a reduced version of every label. This will allow anyone to match photos with the collection data (i.e., the information on the label).
Double Click the Photo to Enlarge it and Read the Location and/or Sample Number.
#0281. This is a quartzose (quartz-rich) sand from the great sand belt of middle and northern coastal Oregon. The sand contains grains from multiple source areas. I'll provide details later.
#0278. This is a bioclastic sand: the clasts or grains are composed almost entirely of fragments of bivalve and gastropod shells, barnacle scutes, coralgal fragments, and more exotic pieces. The dark black grains are volcanic rock fragments.
#0275. I don't know enough about this beautiful sand to write intelligently about it yet. It looks like it is mostly white to yellow quartz, orange to red chert, and dark rock fragments. I'll update.
#0312. Grand Canyon dory trip friends collected this classic east coast quartz sand from Race Point Beach, Outer Cape, Cape Cod, Maine, USA. Race Point Beach is the northernmost beach on the Cape, which is a hook spit, and the beach has a due-north aspect. Note that nearly all the grains are just less than a mm in size. Collected by Mary Clayton and Janice Butzier.
#0271. This is a sand from a low energy environment that is tidally influenced. The great range of grain sizes indicates that the wave energy is not constant enough to winnow away the fine grains. This sand is composed of lithic fragments from Jura-Cretaceous and younger rocks, plus bioclastic debris, mostly thinly-shelled mud-dwelling bivalves.
#0313. Another Cape Cope sand (cf #312) collected by the same dory friends. This is from Coast Guard Beach, a beach that faces the open Atlantic Ocean. This sand also is mostly quartz.
#0273. This sand is composed primarily of well-rounded quartz, a durable mineral that is hard (7 on the Moh hardness scale) and doesn't weather easily. The uniform grain size suggests that the sample came from a stratum deposited during uniform wave conditions. It's likely that these grains are from ancient rocks.
#0055. This is a lithic sand (a sand composed almost entirely of rock clasts rather than mineral grains). The sand contains fragments of schist, phyllite, siltstone, sandstone, and granitics. The white grains are mostly quartz from vein fillings in older bedrock. The grains are well rounded because they have been weathered out from uplifted ancient beach deposits. That is, they've been on a beach before.
#0023. South Point Beach, Hawaii. USA. This uniformly sized sand is about 50-50 dark volcanic fragments (basalt) and light bioclasts. Hawaiian beaches range from all dark volcanic sands to all light bioclastic sands to mixed sands like this.
#0037. This is the very first sample I collected (in 1971). It is nearly pure quartz grains, but they are more angular (less rounded) than the grains from Sanbourne Beach, W.A. Less rounding suggests less wave energy is available to round the grains and/or the grains are recent arrivals. Both are possible here. Ship Island is a an offshore chenier island composed of sand left over from the Ice Age.
This fine grained sand is derived from the local granite bedrock so is composed primarily of quartz, fedspar, and plagioclase plus trace iron-rich minerals. The beach is so bright on a sunny day that sunglasses are a must.
I haven't been to Hawaii yet and considering the islands are made of volcanic rock surrounded by reefs (in places), I don't yet know exactly what all the well-rounded brownish grains are. I'm surmising each is a bioclast.
The west-facing Great Beach of Pt. Reyes is a steep-faced, high-energy beach composed of well-rounded rock fragments including granitics, volcanics, and cherts from nearby uplifted marine terraces. This is a MUST SEE beach.
#0009. Qalito Island, Fiji (correct spelling). This is a bioclastic sand with <0.5% volcanic clasts. It contains coral, bivalve, gastropod, barnacle, and, especially, coralgal fragments. The "Chinese coins" (round discs with holes) are pieces of algae that builds a calcium carbonate framework.
#0173. George Dog Island, British Virgin Islands. A fine-grained well-rounded bioclastic sand collected by brother Barry.
#0020. Qalito Is., Fiji (proper spelling). Collected from the coarse fraction on the back-beach, north of the Castaway Is. Resort. This is a bioclastic sand made up primarily of coral fragments, calcareous algae, and pieces of bivalve and gastropod. REB 5/23/2001.
This fine grained sand is composed mainly of heavy minerals containing iron, magnesium, chromium, nickle, and other metals. These "black sands" or "heavy mineral sands" are common on many beaches where they are often concentrated because the grains are so much heavier than other mineral or rock grains on the beach.
Here's a close-up of the mm-size grains.
This is awfully close to a "coquina,"a sand made of shell hash. There are a few dark volcanic grains in here, coral debris, and one 7-mm-long purplish echinoderm (sea urchin) spine.
REB #0063. Moolack Beach is a ~4.75-mi long, low energy, gently sloping beach that extends from Otter Rock at the north to Yaquina Head at the south, in Newport, Lincoln Co., OR, USA. This is very well sorted very fine sand. REB and Marilyn Busch, 9/9/2001.
#0103, San Juacino Beach, Baja, Mexico. This is a true coquina...a veritable hash of broken and eroded bivalve shells and more. Collected in a surge channel (a unique location). J. C. Peltz, 11/15/2002.
#0234. Gardner Bay, Espanola Island, Galapagos. This bioclastic sand is so white it is difficult to photograph. White sands are rare on the volcanic islands. Guides tell tourists this sand is from "seal poop."
#0317. Turtle Beach, Western Australia. This is another bioclastic sand--a real beauty. Good friends Beau and Martha Whitney, who have brought me many sands, collected it. However, I'm still working on locality data.