Beautiful Pictures Show What Sand Magnified Up To 300x Looks Like

“To see a world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour.”

When Blake scribed this poem, he probably knew that because everything is connected, it's a reflection of everything else. You can, therefore, see the beauty of heaven in a wildflower and in a tiny grain of sand. If you need additional evidence, take a look to Dr. Gary Greenberg’s work.

Greenberg is a fascinating person. Until the age of 33, he used to work as a photographer and filmmaker. But then, he moved from Los Angeles to London and earned a Ph.D. in biomedical research. His curiosity for nature and his background in photography led him to develop the high-definition 3D microscope. He now has 18 patents under his name.

With this invention, Greenberg can capture pictures of grains of sand up to 300x magnification. The photos reveal that even little aspects of Creation are beautiful. Just perhaps, Blake was onto something…

Here are some of his stunning pictures of magnified sand:

South Point on the Big Island of Hawai’i is the most southerly point of land in the US and the source of this sand. Those translucent green grains are olivine. At South Point on Mauna Loa’s southwest rift, the pounding surf erodes a forty-nine-thousand-year-old volcanic cinder cone made of olivine. As the cone erodes, the olivine crystals become beach sand. Very few beaches consist of pure olivine; nevertheless, if there's olivine in the sand, that indicates it's a volcanic region. The deep-red grain is volcanic rock. Magnified 250 times.

The beach at Plum Island, Rowley, Massachusetts, the northernmost barrier island in the US, gets its pink color from garnets in the sand. As garnet is denser than most other sand grains, it gets left behind as the waves sweep the less dense material farther away. Magnified 60 times.

Those roundish grains are ooids, grains of calcium carbonate that precipitated from the ocean water along margins of the Great Bahama Bank, one of three areas in the world where ooids are actively being formed. Those are from Joulter Cays, located about ten miles north of Andros Island in the Bahamas. The shallow water over the bank results in strong tidal currents; this keeps the ooids in near-constant motion and results in carbonate precipitation around the grains. Magnified 75 times.

These tiny, glassy orange spherules originate from a fire-fountain volcano which erupted more than 3.8 billion years ago. Apollo 17 astronauts found this “orange soil” on the rim of Shorty Crater in the Taurus Littrow Valley. Magnified 340 times.

Here's a collection of particles isolated from lunar dust collected from the Fra Mauro Formation during the Apollo 14 mission. All three particles were formed during a meteor strike. The dark gray particle on the top left is agglutinate, in which smaller particles have become encased in impact melt glass. The other two are more breccia like, the particles welded together during impact. Magnified 240 times.

(TINY MICRO SHELLS) Microscopic shells are the size of a tiny grain of sand (magnified 300 times).

(ERODED QUARTZ CRYSTAL) The tiny grains of sand has eroded over hundreds of millions of years, and their original crystal shape is no longer seen (magnified 100 times).

(BELGIAN SAND) A piece of industrial slag becomes a black and blue sand grain on a quartz beach in Belgium (magnification 100 times)

(TAMARINDO SAND GRAIN) A grain of sand from Tamarindo Beach, Costa Rica, is made of chabazite, a glassy cubic mineral.

(A TINY SAPPHIRE) Sand from Japan contains what looks like a sapphire crystal (magnified 150 times)

(MASK SAND) A single grain of sand from the island of Corsica, France, looks like a mask (magnification 150 times).

(SQUARE SAND) A square-shaped shell fragment is found amidst sand from Masaya, Nicaragua (magnification 80 times)

(HAMOA SPONGE SPICULE) Sand from Hamoa Beach, Maui, Hawaii, contains a fragment of a sponge spicule which forms the internal skeleton of a glassy sponge (magnified 100 times).

(MICA FRAGMENT) A small piece of mica from Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, is magnified 100 times.

(MAKENA BLACK & RED) Glassy red and black volcanic sand grains are discovered in the sand from Makena Point, Maui, Hawaii (magnification 100 times).

(BLUE, ORANGE & PINK SAND GRAINS) The tip of a spiral shell has broken off and become a grain of sand. After being repeatedly tumbled by the action of the surf, this spiral sand grain has become opalescent. It's surrounded by bits of coral, shell, and volcanic material.

(MAUI SAND GRAINS ARRANGEMENT #2) This picture is a handful of sand grains selected from a beach in Maui and are arranged onto a black background. The colors and shapes of those tiny grains of sand are surprisingly different and stunning, each with its individual in character.

(SPONGE SPICULES WITH SPIRAL SAND GRAIN 2) Three sponge spicules surround a blue spiral sand grain. Sponge spicules are the internal skeleton of most species of sponges. They are made of silica.

(PUFFY STAR) Sand grains from Okinawa, Japan are made from the skeletons of single-celled forams which produce these beautiful little shells.

(MAUI SAND GRAINS PANORAMA) A panorama of selected sand grains arranged on a glass slide using acupuncture needles to herd the grains into place. The image is pieced together from half a dozen pictures taken side by side and stitched together into one panoramic picture.

(HEART GEMS) Sand grains from around the world are mixed like a pouch full of gems. The sand grains are from Hawaii, Japan, California, Ireland, Bermuda, Maui, and Minnesota.

(PUFFY STARS) Star-Shaped Sand Grains from Okinawa. This tiny foram, a type of protozoa, secrete beautiful star-shaped, calcium carbonate shells, or tests.

(FOOTPRINTS, SUNSET & 3 SANDGRAINS) Three sand grains float between a beach and sunset: one coral sand grains and two bits of sea urchin spine are tiny natural mandalas.

(MAUI RED) Three sand grains from the red sand beach at Makena Point, Maui are heavily eroded, revealing their magnificent interiors.

(SAND TIME) Each grain of sand represents a moment captured in time. It's somewhere on its path from its creation to erosion and recycling back into the earth.

(FALLING SAND) Maui sand grains from Makena Point, Maui, Hawaii, fall into place. There's a red volcanic outcropping at Makena Point that erodes into reddish black beach sand.

(NINE SAND GRAINS) Every grain of sand is unique and stunning when viewed through the microscope. If each grain of sand is so amazing and unique, imagine how amazing and unique each person is?

(FOOTPRINTS, SKY & MAUI SAND GRAINS) When we walk along the beach, we're strolling atop millions of years of biological and geological history. Sand from Maui, Hawaii contains grains of volcanic origins, as well as the many remnants of biological organisms such as shell fragments, sea urchins spines, sponge spicules, bits of coral and forams.

(BERMUDA SAND GRAINS) Sand grains from the beaches of tropical islands like Bermuda are filled with fascinating remnants of biological organisms, including sea urchin spines, shell fragments, bits of coral, glass-like sponge spicules, and the tiny shells of single-cell protists known as forams.

(HAWAIIAN SAND GRAINS ARRANGEMENT) Maui sand grains arrangement shows the diversity of sand grains from a thimble-full of sand from a single beach near Lahaina.

(SAND CLOUDS) Maui Sand Grains seem to float in the Sky with the clouds. These astounding grains of sand were selected from a thimble-full of Maui sand.

(SPONGE SPICULES WITH SPIRAL SAND GRAIN Here two sponge spicules surround a blue spiral sand grain. Sponge spicules are the internal skeleton of most species of sponges. They're made of silica.

(SUNSET WITH SPIRAL SAND GRAIN) The tip of a spiral shell has broken off and become a tiny grain of sand. It's a “world in a grain of sand,” seen here floating in the sky just after sunset.

The elegant marine microorganism was discovered in sand from the Island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea. The area is noted for its diverse marine ecology. The picture was created from 12 individual photos taken at different focus levels. The identification of this microorganism is still a mystery. Magnified 100 times.

Colorado’s astonishing Great Sand Dunes are the highest sand dunes in North America at around 750 feet. This beautiful sand contains a variety of sediments blown from the old floodplain of the Rio Grande River and sediments which have eroded from the nearby mountains. Minerals identifiable in this photo include the clear quartz crystal (near center), the caramel-colored feldspar grain with the ninety-degree angles, as well as the two pink, angled-to-rounded garnet grains.

Reference: Truth Theory