A Closer Look at Sand...

Did you ever think sand on the beach was just sand? A tiny gazillion grains that all look basically the same?  I admit, I've never looked really closely myself...

Well, my friend today showed me we have "Star Sand" here on Guam... I took some pictures below of the stuff we dragged into the house on the kid's sand toys after our trip down to the tide pools right on base here yesterday afternoon.... Look very closely....

Those little stars are the shells of a little Protozoa called Foraminifera. It's a rare sea creature found only on special beaches/tide pools around Guam, Okinawa (Japan) and a few rare beaches in Hawaii. AMAZING!

Note: this photo was taken on my cutting mat, so the yellow lines actually measure out 1 inch across. If you never looked really close at the sand, you'd never notice you were sitting in a billion tiny stars on that beach! 

This absolutely blew my mind today!  How amazing is this world....