I have a small bit of the "star sand" from Guam. I picked the sand off the beach (can't recall if it was in Tumon Bay or elsewhere) back in '69.


---- John Jacobs <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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I am also familiar with this sand, having encountered it on Guam when stationed there in 1975-76.  It was many years later I found out that it was a foram.

John

John & Cheryl Jacobs
Seffner, FL
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  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Fabio Moretzsohn
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 10:51 AM
  Subject: Re: [CONCH-L] Grains of sand magnified


  Hi Karlynn


  Thanks for sharing the link. I think all of the photos (or at least most of them) are included in the book shown in the video and linked at the bottom of the page (A Grain of Sand: Nature's Secret Wonder by Dr Gary Greenberg). I have a copy of that book and really like it, it's very beautiful and colorful. As the website (and the book) says, the author holds several patents on high-definition 3-D light microscopes. Many shells, whole or fragments, and other critters appear on the photographs, but unfortunately there is little information about them. The author could have consulted a few zoologists to identify some of the more conspicuous organisms featured on the photos.


  Among the organisms shown in the photographs, my favorite is the  "Hoshizuna" (star sand), the star-shaped foram, Baculogypsina sphaerulata, is (or used to be) abundant in a couple of beaches in the little island of Taketomi, Okinawa. Local stores used to sell small jars of star sand as souvenirs. This foram is not endemic to Japan; I found it (or a species very similar to it) several times when I worked sorting sand samples from Hawaii as a graduate research assistant during graduate school there.


  Fabio M.

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