La Boquilla Beach, Cartagena, Colombia
Located at the northern tip of a narrow strip of land just north of Cartegena, La Boquilla beach is a long, wide, and flat warm water coastal beach well suited for swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving and especially known for kite surfing. LaBoquilla is a fishing village with Afro-Caribbean roots at the northernmost point of Cartagena. The dark gray beach sand faces a green and crystalline blue sea and boasts of fish-filled coral reefs.
Uniform fine grained tan sand covers the wide beach of LaBoquilla.
LaBoquilla’s wide beach features fine grained tan sand.
This magnification shows the spectrum of clear, light and dark geological sand grains. Many of the clear quartz grains have relatively sharp edges not yet worn down by years of wave and wind action.
Beach sand consists of fine-grained clear quartz, off-white and tan feldspar, a mixture of dark volcanic sand grains, and occasional reddish-brown sand grain fragments. Most sand grains have sharp edges with only occasional more rounded quartz grains.
Sand grains are less than a millimeter in size in this high magnification. Relatively sharp edged clear and translucent quartz grains, some with black, green, and reddish inclusions, are present along with a few tan feldspar grains and a variety of dark volcanic grains.
Black, grey, tan, brown and greenish-gray sand grains are present along with clear and translucent quartz grains in this volcanic sand sample.
A wide spectrum of colored grains along with clear grains of translucent quartz are present in this sample of volcanic sand.
Cholon Beach, Baru Island, Colombia
Cholon is on the island of Baru which is part of the Corales del Rosario National Natural Park that boasts of diverse aquatic and land-based fauna and flora popular for touring site of bioluminescent plankton touring and visiting the Colombian National Aviary. Cholon Island’s sun-drenched fine off-white sand beach is surrounded by calm, shallow water with transparent crystalline turquoise tones. The crystalline waters is perfect for snorkeling and viewing the largest coral reef in Colombia.
Fine grains of off-white sand from Cholon Beach.
Off-white sand and turquoise water of Baru Island.
A spectrum of worn white, off-white, tan, and brown sand grains in this low magnification view represent fragments of shells and corals with occasional black mineral sand grains.
Higher magnification of image above.
In this high magnification occasional dark gray, black and bluish-gray mottled grains are likely geological fragments. The large triangular fragment at the right edge is a mollusk shell fragment, and the centrally located white grains with holes are marine fragments showing sign of predation. The large number of off white and partially translucent grains are too small to identify but are likely marine fragments.
A brown striped mollusk shell fragment is present in the center and surrounded by smoothed edge white and off-white shell and other marine fragments. A semitransparent angular fragment touching the bottom center edge is most likely a quartz grain.
Encantada Beach, Rosario Islands, Colombia
The Rosario Islands is an archipelago located off the coast of Colombia approximately 20 kilometers from Cartagena. It is one of the Natural National Parks of Colombia and is primarily underwater.
Light tan granular marine fragments cover the small Encantada Beach.
Encantada is a small pristine beach located on a private island in the Rosario Island archipelago.
Small bits and pieces of coral and shell fragments surround a large brown sea urchin spine with prominent linear grooves.
This low magnification shows the variety of marine shell fragments that populate this Encantada Beach.
A higher magnification of the image above. Most of the sand fragments have relatively sharp angular edges that will eventually be worn smooth by wave and wind action
A centrally located slightly curved tube worm shell is surrounded by a mixture of white, off white, tan and brown marine organism fragments.
This high magnification features an off-white rectangular shell fragment with a reddish-brown band, dark pink and red fragments of coralline algae, a large white coral fragment with many predator holes at the bottom right and other white and tan fragments of marine organisms. A large fragment of coral is present at the upper left.