Treehugger: "Star sand shows nature's exquisite attention to detail." The legend on Japan’s Iriomote Island is that the unique particles of sand are the children of the North Star and Southern Cross. "The descendants of the stars fell from the sky into the ocean of Okinawa, where they were killed by a sea serpent and remain as beautiful star-shaped grains of sand scattered across the beach." The Japanese term for the sand is “hoshizuna.” Science takes over with an explanation but perhaps takes away a bit of the magic. The grains or clasts of "sand" are actually the tiny shells of an ocean-dwelling one-celled protozoan called Baclogypsina sphaerulata, which have armlets to assist them in mobility + storing food. The tide washes them ashore. The star sand particles are of course mixed in with the more mundane, granular particles of sand. Sandstones are clastic sedimentary rock + comprise 20-25% of sedimentary rocks. Most of these grains are quartz or feldspar, which are both silicates, because these are the minerals most resistant to weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Presumptively one could make a tiny necklace for a seahorse from star sand. Let your imagination run riot.   #sandclasts    #starsand

Treehugger: "Star sand shows nature's exquisite attention to detail." The legend on Japan’s Iriomote Island is that the unique particles of sand are the children of the North Star and Southern Cross. "The descendants of the stars fell from the sky into the ocean of Okinawa, where they were killed by a sea serpent and remain as beautiful star-shaped grains of sand scattered across the beach." The Japanese term for the sand is “hoshizuna.” Science takes over with an explanation but perhaps takes away a bit of the magic. The grains or clasts of "sand" are actually the tiny shells of an ocean-dwelling one-celled protozoan called Baclogypsina sphaerulata, which have armlets to assist them in mobility + storing food. The tide washes them ashore. The star sand particles are of course mixed in with the more mundane, granular particles of sand. Sandstones are clastic sedimentary rock + comprise 20-25% of sedimentary rocks. Most of these grains are quartz or feldspar, which are both silicates, because these are the minerals most resistant to weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Presumptively one could make a tiny necklace for a seahorse from star sand. Let your imagination run riot.   #sandclasts    #starsand