Sand looks very different through a high-powered microscope. Photographer ... fragments of other shells, or bits of volcano. "Every beach is different. Every single grain is different.

Except, the truth is, sand is very much remarkable, at least when you stick it under a microscope. “Every time I see sand under a microscope, it’s a surprise,” says Gary Greenberg.

I'll be looking at a volcano from up close, so up close that you need a microscope to see these details. This isn't a normal microscope, but a petrographic microscope that utilizes the special optical ...

The peculiar fan mail is related to Greenberg’s current passion: photographing grains of sand under 3D microscopes. When he first moved to Maui 11 years ago, “I came here really with myself and with ...

One Seattle-area startup is trying to make the micro world more accessible with development of a portable, desktop electron microscope ... of a sockeye salmon, volcanic soil gathered from the ...

The ash plume from Eyjafjallajökull, piercing the cloud deck above the volcano. Image courtesy ... Eyjafjallajökull ash under a petrographic microscope in crossed-polarized light at ~40x.

Sand therefore records processes at a variety of timescales. Looking closely at sand under a microscope, we can determine the mineral or organismal composition of the sand and determine where it ...

but there are plenty of objects in the ash that show properties of these minerals under the polarizing microscope. These minerals are all common in basaltic-to-andesitic magmas, so no large surprise ...