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Lake Eyre South, SA, Australia

The quick onyx goblin jumps over the lazy dwarf.

Lake Superior, Black Creek, Calument, MI

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Lake Erie, Headlands State Park, Ohio

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

Zamani Island-test, Okinawa, Japan

This is “star sand,” and the stars are forams of two species found widely in the Indo-Pacific, Baculogypsina sphaerulata (pointier) and Calcarina spengleri (blunter). Short for foraminifera, forams are single-celled organisms related to the amoeba, but with a hard shell called a test and one or more internal chambers. When they die, their tests accumulate as sand. Forams are abundant in the modern ocean’s waters as well as in the fossil record. Some float in the water column, others like star sand species live on the ocean bottom. There are also encrusting forams such as the red fragment in this sample, Homotrema rubrum. In shape, forams vary from coiled (ammonite like) to round, elongated, leaf-like, flat, tubular, or conical. Forams eat decomposing plants and animals, bacteria and diatoms; they are food for worms, crustaceans, snails, fish, sea urchins and starfish. “Star sand” is a popular souvenir from Japan. More text as a test. Rye Beach, south of Portsmouth, is interpreted as a multiple tombolo. That’s a landform where sand spits connect the mainland to offshore seamounts. The area was heavily glaciated, and boulders of quartzite, shale and schist (metamorphic rocks) lay amid the quartz sand grains. As waves modify the shoreline, the rocks fracture into small wedge-shaped pieces. Intertidal boulder surfaces provide purchase for marine life. Mussel (Mytilus) remains are present: blue chips from shell interiors; a brown and blue chip is an outer surface. The articulated red coralline alga Corallina is the source of the white jointed rods of calcium carbonate. Fragments of 2 snail shells and a barnacle are seen at 1, 2 and 3 o’clock. The transparent amber shard near the bottom is glass.

Itaipuaçu Beach-test, Maricá, RJ, Brazil

Maricá is located 20 miles east of the metropolitan area of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Itaipuaçu Beach is among the famous beaches along Brazil’s Atlantic coast. Sugarloaf Mountain overlooks and forms the backdrop of Rio. This mountain is an example of the granitic Pre-Cambrian continental basement rock under eastern South America, part of the Serra do Mar range that runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. Tectonically, these mountains are very stable. However, over tens of millions of years, the mountains have eroded, and the rock has weathered to the medium, coarse quartz and feldspar grains in this sand. Feldspar grains show close to a 90° corner while the quartz grains are rounder. These grains are well rounded and polished, an indication of high wave energy. On this west-east trending shoreline, waves are generated by easterly trade winds and are accompanied by southerly swells arriving from the South Atlantic. Repeat as a test. Maricá is located 20 miles east of the metropolitan area of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Itaipuaçu Beach is among the famous beaches along Brazil’s Atlantic coast. Sugarloaf Mountain overlooks and forms the backdrop of Rio. This mountain is an example of the granitic Pre-Cambrian continental basement rock under eastern South America, part of the Serra do Mar range that runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. Tectonically, these mountains are very stable. However, over tens of millions of years, the mountains have eroded, and the rock has weathered to the medium, coarse quartz and feldspar grains in this sand. Feldspar grains show close to a 90° corner while the quartz grains are rounder. These grains are well rounded and polished, an indication of high wave energy. On this west-east trending shoreline, waves are generated by easterly trade winds and are accompanied by southerly swells arriving from the South Atlantic.

Rye Harbor-test, Rye, New Hampshire

Rye Beach, south of Portsmouth, is interpreted as a multiple tombolo. That’s a landform where sand spits connect the mainland to offshore seamounts. The area was heavily glaciated, and boulders of quartzite, shale and schist (metamorphic rocks) lay amid the quartz sand grains. As waves modify the shoreline, the rocks fracture into small wedge-shaped pieces. Intertidal boulder surfaces provide purchase for marine life. Mussel (Mytilus) remains are present: blue chips from shell interiors; a brown and blue chip is an outer surface. The articulated red coralline alga Corallina is the source of the white jointed rods of calcium carbonate. Fragments of 2 snail shells and a barnacle are seen at 1, 2 and 3 o’clock. The transparent amber shard near the bottom is glass.

SplendidSands