Ronny Wright.. age 12, of Gastonia# N.C.,
Where do we find diatoms?
They teem in stagnant pools and lazy creeks. They sweep along with the rivers and throng the sunlit surface of the sea, Wherever there is water, there are diatoms. They have been thriving for perhaps 500 million years, for their ancestors were among the first living things. Each lives in an embroidered jewel box of glassy opal and a lone diatom can multiply into several million diatoms in a few sunny days. And all these wonders are too small for our eyes to see.
It takes about 1,000 average diatoms to measure one inch and we need a microscope to reveal their beauty. Each tiny jewel box is two shells fitted together, It is made of hard silica, the main ingredient in opal and in the sand we use to make glass. Quartz, hardest of the common minerals, is also made from silica, The diatom shelter is durable, burglar‑proof and also beautiful.
The tiny box may be round or square, oval or oblong. It may be shaped like a new moon, like a starfish or a snowflake, The basic building will be artistically decked with an assortment of buttons and studs, pits and grooves, stubby fringes and dainty laces ‑ all embroidered from durable silica, The little architect is a plant, a single‑celled scrap of vegetation belonging to the alga or seaweed family, Safe inside the dainty glass house, the living diatom looks somewhat like a tiny drop of golden brown honey.
We know of some 10,000 different diatoms and most of them prefer life in the cooler oceans. They need the surface sunlight and dissolved chemicals including silica and phosphorus. The sea gathers these chemicals from decaying fish and seaweeds. During the winter, this debris tends to sift down below the sunlit surface and the diatoms barely exist of short rations.
With the spring, the chemically rich waters well up from below and the dainty diatoms thrive and multiply. Shrimps and fish larvae, worms and throngs of bitsy sea dwellers swarm in to feed. Together, they form plankton, the rich seafood salad which is the basic food for all ocean life, Herring and mackerel, cod and bluefish, tuna and shark swim in to join the banquet, devouring the little plankton eaters and each other. This vital food chain is started by the sudden outburst of life among the diatoms. Since time began, they have seeded the rich plankton meadows and without them life in the sea would face starvation.
As the diatoms live and diet generations of shells sift down to the ocean floors. Through eons of time they may form layers hundreds of feet thick. As the shores change, they are sometimes left high and dry as diatomaceous earth. This is used as a filter in the making of sugar and as a mix in concrete. Diatomaceous earth even works in our kitchens, for it is used to make cleansing powders. It was made by dainty diatoms that lived perhaps 30 million years ago and every spoonful may contain 50 million of their tiny jewel boxes.