White sand is calcium carbonate that has been eroded down to sand size particles. One way that happens is by parrot fish grinding it up, but weathering surely created the vast majority of it.
Comment on Doing it now
_lilith@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This isn’t any more true than it was 15 years ago when I first saw it on imgur. Those are close ups of small shells found in some tropical sand that have been separated from regular sand. Sand isn’t fucking magic its small rocks.
Also white sand is fish poop.
FishFace@piefed.social 2 months ago
CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world 2 months ago
FishFace@piefed.social 2 months ago
How does that compare to the quantity of sand already in existence? There was a long period of time (millions and millions of years) when there were no parrotfish, but billions of tons of calcium carbonate being eroded by the weather.
Abyssian@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What a stupid thing to bicker about. Good work, people on the internet. o_O
CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Could very well have been other animals over time.
can@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
How much of all the planet’s sand is on beaches frequenteeed by humans? Perhaps the interesting samples are over-represented but they’re still neat.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
How does that compare to the quantity of sand already in existence?
Seeing as there’s now a shortage of water-eroded sand, probably a good portion of it
crimson_iris@piefed.social 2 months ago
And how much of it is at least 50% microplastics now.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Hajabawhat now? How is white sand fish poop? Isn’t it just sand? Or do you mean like the white particles in mixed sand are fish poop?
executivechimp@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
White sand is fish poop. animalsaroundtheglobe.com/this-fish-eats-coral-an…
lividweasel@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“This fish produces white sand” is pretty far away from “all white sand is produced by fish”.
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Shhhhh, let them believe. It is okay
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
And yet if you look at magnifiedsand.com it is insanely cool and not too different from the images in this post. I don’t think that entire website is fraudulent. Glad I didn’t see your comment first because it would’ve turned me off of even looking into this further. When I did look into it further, I was thrilled.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
That is very heavily curated to make every picture interesting. Take a scoop from your nearest beach and it doesn’t look anywhere near as dramatic. Sauce: I run a lab with fancy microscopes.
Your skin is infinitely more populated. Especially under your fingernails.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Interesting. Have you ever looked at beach sand specifically, under a microscope?
icelimit@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Yes, different types. Including glacial erosion and other sediments. Some are interesting, most are unremarkable to the layman. To academics, they are interesting for the story they tell (shat out of parrotfish for example)
can@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Or Big Magnifier would have you believe.