Selected grains are placed in a scanner at a research facility and X-rayed from hundreds of angles. Each grain is carefully mounted on a thin rod and placed inside a machine the size of a small room — built to image something barely visible to the naked eye. 

The contrast alone says something about what the small can reveal.

The result is not an interpretation of a grain. It is an exact model of one. The shape you see in each piece comes directly from nature.

Micro-CT works like an X-ray scanner in a hospital — but at much higher resolution and directed at very small objects. In OUAW’s case: individual grains of sand.