Matt,

I think people will agree that beach "renourishment" is usually bad news for beach drift as well as intertidal life. However, the renourishment sand at John U. Lloyd State Park in Dania has had a big diversity of micros.

There was little drift I could find at Boynton Beach, FL, but I took a couple of zip-lock bags of grit from 70 feet down off Boynton while diving. After sorting carefully over the last year, I've found about 170 species in those two bags.

What kind of magnification are you using? My 4X loupe will sometimes help me spot quite a lot of material while I'm on the beach, but I have to hunch over to stay in focus. However, I can miss a lot of the tinier shells until I examine the sand (back at home) with a 15X lens.

David Kirsh

"I had learned that those who are lying or trying to cover
 up something generally make a common mistake - they tend to
 overact, to overstate their case." - Richard Milhous Nixon

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