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Draft:Star sand

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Magnified star sand found in Okinawa
Yurigahama beach on Yoronjima is famous for its star sand[1]

Star sand (Japanese: 星砂, romanized: hoshizuna, lit. 'star-sand'),[2] also known as living sand,[3] is a rare sand-like substance made up of the star-shaped skeletal remains of marine foraminifera in the family Calcirinidae.[4][5][6][7] When the Calcirinids die, their skeletons are swept from their reef habitats and accumulate by the billions on shore.[8] Star sand is found on shores throughout the west and south Pacific, including in the Indonesian archipelago, the Okinawa Islands, and Raine Island.[5][9][10] Development of star sand causes beaches to "grow" over time as a result of the forams' life cycle,[5] with annual rates of calcium carbonate production as high as 1 kg/m² near coral reef margins in the Pacific.[3] Because of this, laboratory production of star sand for beach renourishment has been developed in Japan.[11][12] 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.[13][14] Up to three quarters of the sediment mass of Tuvalu is star sand.[15] Bottles of star sand are sold as souveniers.[9][3] Arenophiles acquire samples of star sand through trade with other enthusiasts.[16] Collection of large quantities of star sand for commercial purposes from the Great Barrier Reef is prohibited.[17] 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.[5] 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.[18][2] A similar process of measuring star sand spines was used in 2012 to study depositional processes on Raine Reef in the Great Barrier Reef.[19]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Terry, James P. (2006). "Yoron Island in Southern Japan - Quaternary Geology and Solution Controls on Surface Land forms" (PDF). South Pacific Studies. 26 (2): 111–123.
  2. ^ a b 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.
  3. ^ a b c 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.
  4. ^ Langer, Martin R.; Hottinger, Lukas (2000). "Biogeography of Selected "Larger" Foraminifera". Micropaleontology. 46: 105–126. ISSN 0026-2803.
  5. ^ a b c d Hobson, Melissa. "This isn't a starfish—it's a rare sand found only in Japan". National Geographic. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
  6. ^ Hohenegger, Johann (2012-04-26). "Inferences on Sediment Production and Transport at Carbonate Beaches Using Larger Foraminifera": 112–125. doi:10.1061/40640(305)9. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ^ 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. doi:10.1007/s13199-010-0056-4. ISSN 0334-5114.
  8. ^ Burki, Fabien; Keeling, Patrick J. (February 2014). "Rhizaria". Current Biology. 24 (3): R103 – R107. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.12.025. ISSN 0960-9822. Archived from the original on 2024-11-26.
  9. ^ a b Hohenegger, Johann (2011). Large Foraminifera - Greenhouse constructions and gardeners in the oceanic microcosm (PDF). The Kagoshima University Museum Bulletin No.5. Kagoshima: The Kagoshima University Museum. ISBN 978-4-905464-00-6.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Bird, Eric; Lewis, Nick (2015). Beach Renourishment. SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-09728-2. ISBN 978-3-319-09727-5.
  12. ^ 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. doi:10.1016/j.seares.2014.03.007. ISSN 1385-1101.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ 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, ISBN 978-90-04-31654-6, retrieved 2025-01-08
  15. ^ "Starry-eyed". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
  16. ^ Coates, Peter (2020), Carruthers, Jo; Dakkak, Nour (eds.), "An Eclectic A–Z of Sand: Removing, Treasuring, Recreating and Protecting", Sandscapes: Writing the British Seaside, 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
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ Yasukochi, Toru; Kayanne, Hajime; Yamaguchi, Toru; Yamano, Hiroya (2014-10-01). "Sedimentary facies and Holocene depositional processes of Laura Island, Majuro Atoll". Geomorphology. Coral Reef Geomorphology. 222: 59–67. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2014.04.017. ISSN 0169-555X.
  19. ^ 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.
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