Sand Beach is comprised of fine-grained sand while other Maine beaches that are open to waves and storms consist of pebbles, cobbles and boulders. In contrast to the mixed marine and geological type of sand present on Sand Beach, most sand on Maine beaches is derived from some type of glacial deposits subsequently broken down by waves and other physical forces. Sand beach is primarily a carbonate beach (shells, muscles, sea urchins) mostly consisting of crushed shells with a small percentage of sand being high in potassium feldspar, giving it a pink color.
The higher magnification includes a white sea urchin spine to the left of a large striped tan mollusk shard. Some clear quartz sand grains are just to the right of center and a light tan barnacle fragment with linear grooves is just to the right of center at the bottom.
Geographic Overview
The eastern coast of Maine and Mount Desert Island both have stunning scenery with powerful waves pounding the hard bedrock that is mostly granite with only a few places with hard sedimentary rock and schist metamorphic rock. The rocky coast is ancient with the youngest roughly 500-million-year-old (Devonian period) and the oldest, the schist, approximately 550-million-year-old. Bedrock, glaciers and the sea contributed to the Acadia National Park landscape.
Sand Gallery
This colorful mixture of sand grains features clear quartz grains, various white and off-white colored shell fragments and reddish-brown grains of potassium feldspar.
This mixture of sand grains includes clear and smokey quartz, reddish-pink potassium feldspar, and fragments of different shells.
Some of the clear and slightly opaque quartz sand grains as well as the pink potassium feldspar in center of this image contain black, possibly horneblende or tourmaline, inclusions. Angular tan and white sand grains are smoothly rounded mollusk shell fragments.
In addition to pinkish potassium feldspar, clear and slightly opaque quartz, various mollusk fragments, and green sand grains that are possibly olivine are featured in this photomicrograph. Many of the quartz grains and some feldspar grains contain black inclusions that may be horneblende or tourmaline.
This mixture of sand grains includes pinkish-tan potassium feldspar, clear quartz, a variety of mollusk fragments and a few small black grains that are probably magnetite.