Italian geologist reveals the hidden beauty of beach pebbles - PHOTO

When walking along a beach, most pebbles look relatively alike - and dull - but an Italian geologist has revealed their hidden beauty using a powerful microscope.His images, which show multi-coloured shards in the brightest colours of the rainbow could lead you to imagine that you're looking through a kaleidoscope rather than the inside of everyday stones. Professor Bernardo Cesare’s incredible images are magnified images of pebbles he collected when on holiday in Spain.Professor Cesare, 50, from the University of Padova, Italy, carefully selected pebbles from a beach in Carboneras, Spain, which is known for the variety of geologically different rock available.‘I was spending my summer vacations with my family at a friends' place on a beautiful beach,’ he explained.‘The pebbles of the beach were so varied in rock colours and textures that I collected a representative selection to keep at home.‘Then it occurred to me that I could make a microscopic reportage with them. So I got thin sections made from the pebbles and took micrographs of them.’Professor Cesare said he gave the prettiest of the micrographs to his Spanish friends as gifts.He said the method allows the natural beauty of the internal structures of the rock to come alive.‘My pictures provide just a small in the micro-world of rocks,’ he said.‘On one hand they can show the order typical of the crystalline nature of minerals as straight lines corresponding to crystal faces.‘On the other they show irregularity and chaos that also characterise natural processes and the swirling lines that are sometimes seen give the feeling of movement, as a result of deformation during smashing of continents.‘But this is what I see as a geologist. What you see may be flowers, figures, trees, people and even faces,’ he added.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az