Oh My.

Via Swans on Tea, I found this Flickr collection of sand photos (two pages) by "Mouser NerdBot". Oh my. I need to catch my breath. Now here's the thing I really appreciate: the photographer has done an excellent job of labeling the location and composition of the samples, even, for example, explaining how the garnets below were concentrated from an "ant sand." Check out the enormous original size photos too!

These garnets were extracted from ant sand. Garnet is paramagnetic and can be separated from its surroundings in sand with a strong magnet. These garnets range in size from 1mm to 5mm in diameter. There are presumably larger garnets in the soil in this area, but with ant sand you are limited to things ants can lift and carry.