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Uncategorized Thursday, July 14th 2011 at 2:20 pm

Magnified Sand Grains More Beautiful Than You Thought

Who knew that sand could be so beautiful? While we tend to think of sand as a collection of neutral-colored grains, when magnified 250 times, sand reveals its true assortment of colors, shapes, and sizes. Professor Gary Greenberg at the University College London, magnified individual grains of sand, showing that they really look like an assortment of gemstones and miniature shells.

Greenberg developed a new form of magnification photography to capture his images of the sand, to avoid the problems he was encountering before with the shallow depth of field. Copies of Greenberg’s coffee table book, featuring his sand photographs, are available on his website for $20. More of these amazing sand pictures below.

(via Gizmodo, images via Sandgrains.com)

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  • http://twitter.com/Gauldar Rob

    I wonder how many grains of sand they had to go through to find these precious gems.

  • KittyInTangles

    @Rob 50 BAGILLION and 2!
    (Go@twitter-23106797:disqus ogles “BAGILLION”, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bagillion)

  • http://www.facebook.com/lee.wathen.33 Lee Wathen

    none, those are just the “grains.” The ones that look like tiny shells are one of the most prolific forms of life on earth, protists that form shells of siliocon and produce fatty acids for energy instead of carboydrates.