Natural Beauty of the Ocean
The ocean offers endless breathtaking beauty. Between the beautiful views, the amazing organisms and the stunning seaweed, it's hard to pick a favorite. Here at Scientific Ocean Art, we share some of our favorite forms of beauty from the sea in wearable art.
The seashells that you see scattered along the beaches around the world are skeletons and exoskeletons of marine organisms that are created through biomineralisation. This is when the organisms draw dissolved calcium out of the water column and release the hydrogen leaving a solid structure usually aragonite, one of the mineral forms of calcium carbonate. Shells such as those shown here come in all shapes and sizes ranging from microscopic to over a foot in length.
Talochlamys zelandiae (The New Zealand Fan Shell) is a species of mollusk found all over the beaches of New Zealand. They are spectacularly colored bivalves that found in a wide from deep purples to bright oranges as shown in this pair of earrings.
.925 Stamped Sterling Silver Hooks
Sterling Silver Plated Hooks Elegant Design
14k Gold Plated Hooks Elegant Design
Algae
Algae are aquatic organisms that are photosynthetic but also able to ingest food from their surroundings. This makes them good bioindicators of water quality as, like terrestrial plants, they can have rapid responses to pollutants.
Algae can be useful for more than just art. Red algaes have been used for many decades to produce Agar agar which is used in everything from petri dishes to gelling agents for vegan foods. One way genetesists use them is through agarose gel electrophoresis, in which a gel consting of agar agar is used to check the integritiy of genomic DNA. This helps scientsist know if their samples are degraded or if they are pure enough to move on to the next step in gene expression.
Algae is also used in inks and dyes. Algae inks are sometimes coined the most sustainable inks that have a negative carbon footprint and can also be resistant to UV light. Algae can also be used as a fuel as a pyrolysis oil or as a tool to study for other alternatitve fuels. Algae that can survive underneith the ice in Antartica is being studied to help inprove the effectiveness of solar panals per each panel and when the sun isn't shining.
