Sand Grain Universe — Mauna Kea Beach Study
229.00 د.إ
Sand grains from Mauna Kea beach, Hawaii, photographed at 12:1 macro scale — the mineral fragments revealing a micro-universe of quartz, olivine, coral, and volcanic glass.
Description
The sand of Mauna Kea Beach in Hawaii is a mixture of mineral sources — white quartz derived from eroded continental minerals, green olivine crystals directly weathered from the volcanic basalt, fragments of coral skeleton, and occasional chips of volcanic glass (obsidian) from lava flows. This photograph, made at 12:1 reproduction using a reflected dark-field illumination system, reveals the full variety of grain mineral types as a micro-landscape of extraordinary colour and form variety — the translucent quartz grains refracting light as tiny prisms, the green olivine showing characteristic crystal faces, the coral fragments with their characteristic microporosity, and the obsidian chips with their characteristic conchoidal fracture surfaces visible at this magnification.
