Christmas is approaching fast. Here is an attempt to make a Christmas card composed of sand grains. You may say that it is artistically not very high standard but you see here really tiny objects that were painstakingly arranged in an attempt to make the scene reasonably recognizable.
With this card Sandatlas wishes you all Merry Christmas.
White snow is quartz sand from Florida. Stars are forams (Baculogypsina) from Japan. The snowman is made of forams as well (Sorites from Cyprus). His eyes are amphibole grains (from Spain). There are some sea urchin spines (Baleares Islands) and bryozoans (The Caribbean) as snow-covered bushes. Red lights are almandine garnet crystals (California). The whole scene is about 15 mm in width.
that is sooooo wonderful!!! Thanks!
Great work, marvalous
What fun! Thanks for sharing your sandy winter scene. Creative!
Very creative. Have a Merry Christmas.
Hope to see a creative New Year picture as well.
Bill
And the very same to you and all your foramifera
What a fantastic composition — how on earth do you keep your hand steady enough to move a single sand grain where you want it? My attempts at moving sand around under a microscope are unpredictable at best.
this is great. way to go
Thank you for sharing this delightful scientific Christmas card! Excellent eye-hand coordination and dexterity + artistic ability!!
Moving one sand grain where you want to is not that difficult to do on a glass slide with fine needles and toothpicks. It is another story if you want to place one grain on top of another. Sand grains tolerate no pressure at all, they just fly away and you will never find them again. So the most difficult part were the eyes of the snowman. We wanted to add a nose too but then the whole thing just blew into pieces. We were lucky that some photos were already taken. I say we because my wife did most of the job arranging the grains where they should be while I was searching suitable grains for the picture.
Unbelievable! Thank you.
Very festive! Best wishes to you and your family!