Mixed light and dark small sand grains are primarily geological with some small bits of marine shells.
Geographic Overview
Iona is a tiny island off the southwest coast of Scotland in the Inner Hebrides, has a long and illustrious history, and is well known as being the birthplace of Celtic Christianity in Scotland.The geology of Iona is quite complex. About half of the island’s bedrock is gneiss dating from the Archaean on making it some of the oldest rock in Britain and indeed Europe.
Sand Location
See where this sand sample was collected on Google Maps.
Virtual Sand Tour
Explore an interactive map of Baile Mór-Isle of Iona on Google Earth.
Sand Gallery
This mixture of mostly marine fragments includes worn fragments of mollusk shells with faintly visible groves, a green such urchin spine fragment, occasional blue and red shell fragments and some clear quartz grains. One quartz grain near the upper left center contains red inclusions. Black grains are pieces of volcanic rock, possibly basalt.
This low magnification view shows a mixture of black volcanic grains and a mixture of white, off white and clear marine shell fragments with occasional red and purple shell fragments.
This colorful mixture of grains reflects the combined marine and geological components of this beach sand with some quartz grain containing red, green and black inclusions. The dark red-black centrally located grain may be highly pigmented quartz.
This view of predominately marine sand grains includes green and violet grains and a larger blue-black partially clear quartz grain near center. White and off-white worn fragments of marine origin are present along with clear refractile quartz grains.