Star sand (Japanese: 星砂),[1] also known as living sand,[2] is a rare sand-like substance made up of the star-shaped skeletal remains of marine foraminifera in the family Calcirinidae.[3][4][5][6] When the Calcirinids die, their skeletons are swept from their reef habitats and accumulate by the billions on shore.[7] A Japanese myth holds that grains of star sand are the skeletons of descendants of the North Star and the Southern Cross, fallen to the waters of Okinawa and killed by a serpent sent by the god of the sea.[4] Star sand is found on shores throughout the west and south Pacific, including in the Indonesian archipelago, the Okinawa Islands, and Raine Island.[4][8][9] Development of star sand causes beaches to "grow" over time as a result of the forams' life cycle,[4] with annual rates of calcium carbonate production as high as 1 kg/m2 near coral reef margins in the Pacific.[2] Because of this, laboratory production of star sand for beach renourishment has been developed in Japan.[10][11] The Japanese government has cultured star sand at Okinotorishima to build the islet into a more stable atoll and thus to strengthen Japan's legal claim to the surrounding waters, which otherwise would belong to China.[12][13] Up to three quarters of the sediment mass of Tuvalu is star sand.[14] Bottles of star sand are sold as souvenirs.[8][2] Arenophiles acquire samples of star sand through trade with other enthusiasts.[15] Collection of large quantities of star sand for commercial purposes from the Great Barrier Reef is prohibited.[16] Since 1979, the erosion of individual grains of Baculogypsina sphaerulata star sand has been used as a metric of littoral drift in Japan, with scientists using the lengths of the skeletal spines to reconstruct the origins and travel distances of sediment deposits.[17][1] A similar process of measuring star sand spines was used in 2012 to study depositional processes on Raine Reef in the Great Barrier Reef.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ 秋山, 吉則 (1979). "漂砂の指標としての『星砂』の砕屑過程: 与論島北東部現成サンゴ礁を例として". 地理科学. 31: 33–40. doi:10.20630/chirikagaku.31.0_33
  2. ^ Lee, John J. (1995-04-01). "Living Sands: The symbiosis of protists and algae can provide good models for the study of host/symbiont interactions". BioScience. 45 (4): 252–261. doi:10.2307/1312418. ISSN 0006-3568. JSTOR 1312418
  3. ^ Langer, Martin R. & Hottinger, Lukas (2000). "Biogeography of Selected "Larger" Foraminifera". Micropaleontology. 46: 105–126. ISSN 0026-2803. JSTOR 1486184
  4. ^ Hobson, Melissa. "This isn't a starfish—it's a rare sand found only in Japan". National Geographic. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
  5. ^ Hohenegger, Johann (2012-04-26). "Inferences on Sediment Production and Transport at Carbonate Beaches Using Larger Foraminifera". Carbonate Beaches 2000. pp. 112–125. doi:10.1061/40640(305)9. ISBN 978-0-7844-0640-3.
  6. ^ Lee, John J.; Cervasco, Megan H.; Morales, Jorge; Billik, Morgan; Fine, Maoz; Levy, Oren (July 2010). "Symbiosis drove cellular evolution: Symbiosis fueled evolution of lineages of Foraminifera (eukaryotic cells) into exceptionally complex giant protists". Symbiosis. 51 (1): 13–25. Bibcode:2010Symbi..51...13L. doi:10.1007/s13199-010-0056-4. ISSN 0334-5114
  7. ^ Burki, Fabien & Keeling, Patrick J. (February 2014). "Rhizaria". Current Biology. 24 (3): R103–R107. Bibcode:2014CBio...24.R103B. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.12.025. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 24502779. Archived 2024-11-26 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ^ Hohenegger, Johann (2011). Large Foraminifera - Greenhouse constructions and gardeners in the oceanic microcosm. The Kagoshima University Museum Bulletin No.5. Kagoshima: The Kagoshima University Museum. ISBN 978-4-905464-00-6.
  9. ^ Limpus, Colin J; Limpus, Colin J.; Miller, Jeffrey D.; Parmenter, C. John; Limpus, Duncan J. (2003). "The green turtle, Chelonia mydas, population of Raine Island and the northern Great Barrier Reef: 1843-2001". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 49 (1): 349––440.
  10. ^ Bird, Eric & Lewis, Nick (2015). Beach Renourishment. SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Bibcode:2015bere.book.....B. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-09728-2. ISBN 978-3-319-09727-5.
  11. ^ Hosono, Takashi; Lopati, Paeniu; Makolo, Filipo; Kayanne, Hajime (July 2014). "Mass culturing of living sands (Baculogypsina sphaerulata) to protect island coasts against sea-level rise". Journal of Sea Research. 90: 121–126. Bibcode:2014JSR....90..121H. doi:10.1016/j.seares.2014.03.007. ISSN 1385-1101
  12. ^ Baldacchino, Godfrey (2017). "Worth nothing, yet worth everything: Why countries (may) go to war over small islands". Solution protocols to festering island disputes: "win-win" solutions for the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-4724-7518-3.
  13. ^ Root, Joshua L. (2016-01-01), "Castles in the Sand: Engineering Insular Formations to Gain Legal Rights over the Oceans", Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs, Volume 32 (2014), Brill | Nijhoff, pp. 58–85, doi:10.1163/9789004316553_006. ISBN 978-90-04-31654-6, retrieved 2025-01-08
  14. ^ "Starry-eyed". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
  15. ^ Coates, Peter (2020), "An Eclectic A–Z of Sand: Removing, Treasuring, Recreating and Protecting", Sandscapes: Writing the British Seaside, Carruthers, Jo (ed.), Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 29–50, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44780-9_3. ISBN 978-3-030-44780-9, retrieved 2025-01-07
  16. ^ Mabin, M. C. G. (1994). Field survey for carbonate, silica and quartzose sediment deposits. Research publication series no.22. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
  17. ^ Yasukochi, Toru; Kayanne, Hajime; Yamaguchi, Toru; Yamano, Hiroya (2014-10-01). "Sedimentary facies and Holocene depositional processes of Laura Island, Majuro Atoll". Geomorphology. 222: 59–67. Coral Reef Geomorphology. Bibcode:2014Geomo.222...59Y. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2014.04.017. ISSN 0169-555X
  18. ^ Dawson, J. L.; Hua, Q.; Smithers, S. G. (2012-07-19). Benthic foraminifera: their importance to future reef island resilience. International Coral Reef Society. ISBN 978-0-9808572-5-2.