Pink Sand - by Quillian

      

  

    On the oceanside of Fakarava my mom and I found pink sand. We wondered how it was formed. We had some theories like crushed pink coral or broken up orange rocks. It turns out the little one-celled organism, foraminifera, makes pink sand. 

    Foraminifera, forams for short, are single-celled organisms with shells called tests that are made of calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is the same material found in shells of other marine organisms such as coral, lobsters, and muscles. 

    Forams are not considered animals because they do not have bodies that are divided up into multiple cells. However, they are also not quite like plants because they do not have photosynthesis like plants and algae. As a result, foraminifera are clarified separately from both plants and animals in a group called protists. Protists are found in most fresh water and salt water environments. The majority of foraminifera species live at the bottom of the ocean, growing in plants, sand and other things. Most forams are quite small averaging less than 1mm in size. Some species such a as the giant antarctic foram can grow over 10mm in length which is about the size of an average adult fingernail. 

    So the next time someone asks about pink sand you can tell them it is made by a very small marine organism, the red foraminifera.

-Quillian

Source: https://bios.asu.edu/currents/our-unique-pink-sand/