Colorful mixture of marine fragments including sea urchin spines, light and dark mollusk shell fragments, forams and bits of coral.
Geographic Overview
Essaouira’s 6 mile wide, sandy beach is great for walking and kitesurfing, but sunbathing and swimming can be difficult when the winds are strong. Essaouira is known as the ‘Wind City of Africa’ especially between April and November and is a well preserved mid-18th century fortified seaport town.

Sand Location
See where this sand sample was collected on Google Maps.

Virtual Sand Tour
Explore an interactive map of Plage d’Essaouira on Google Earth.
Sand Gallery
A large white semi-translucent angular shell fragment is present in this sample along with brown and tan bits and pieces of other marine fragments. Several clear refractile quartz fragments are present along with some quartz fragments containing irregular red inclusions (below the large angular shell fragment and above a tan striped mollusk sand grain).
Fragments and bits of marine organisms are present along with a tan and white foram with distinct chambers that is located slightly below center and to the right of a smoothly worn white and tan mollusk shell fragment. Other fragmented marine sand grains and dark geological sand grains make up most of this sample. A refractile quartz crystal is present at the right of center upper edge.
Two forams with visible chambers plus transparent white and tan marine fragments are present in this sample along with irregularly mottled green, gray and black and black geological sand fragments.