Magnified Sand reveals the hidden beauty of individual grains

Magnified Sand is Robert Maronpot's ongoing microscopic photography project. He photographs individual sand grains up close, revealing shapes and colors that are completely invisible to the naked eye. The results look less like beach debris and more like abstract sculpture — angular, translucent, crystalline. You can browse the full sand photo gallery here.

Each grain, ranging from 0.02 to 2mm, is a fragment of something larger — crushed rock, mineral, coral, mollusk shell, or the skeletal remains of tiny marine organisms like bryozoans and foraminifera. As the site puts it, sand "reveal[s] a diverse origin reflecting geological history and marine life biodiversity." What looks uniform underfoot turns out to be a tiny museum of the Earth's geology and ocean life, all jumbled together on the shore.

If you want to browse by location, you can sort by beach — there are samples from all over the world. Different beaches produce strikingly different grains depending on what's nearby: volcanic rock, coral reefs, quartz cliffs. I especially love the interesting shapes photographed at Minami Beach. Worth an afternoon of browsing.

Previously:

• Incredible winners of "Small World" microscope photography competition
• The secret world of Victorian microphotography: shrinking images to the size of a pencil tip
• Take a look at "Journey to the Microcosmos" new video shot with an upgraded microscope