More Sea Glass

I know I talked a bit about what you could do with sea glass in my video about it. I wanted to show everyone part of my collection, however, so you all can see that I really do collect it. A lot. I think I have a problem.

Some bottles with sea glass look nice on an end table I have

This is an old trinket box filled to the brim

Another bottle in my bathroom

Now on to the various types of sea glass. As mentioned in the video (I think), it comes in various sizes and colors and a lot of them are a bit more rare than others. The pictures aren't fantastic, but these are a few pieces from my own insane collection and some descriptions.

These are various shades of amber. Amber can be pretty common being the color of various beers and other beverages.

These are various shades of green ranging from the normal kelly green (think Heineken) to seafoam (even though it looks clear here) and various olives and leaded pieces in between.

These are really rare colors. Clockwise from top: orange/yellow, lime green (even though it looks kelly in this picture), turquoise, sage green, and seafoam.



These are all neck pieces from various colored bottles. These are prized for their unique shaped.



These are bottle bottoms. I like these because they are rarely just flat. I'm very excited about the clear piece at the bottom because it obviously comes from a square gin bottle.

These are the "rares" or really hard to find pieces. Clockwise from top: jelly bean shaped, bonfire glass, fused pieces of glass with stuff stick in between, and a complete bottle mouth.

I told you I had a problem, but each piece has a bit of history and I can't resist.

Sea Glass Collection by
Marizela Moya is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.


You can find out more about sea glass in many books. Lots of people are addicts too and have written about and photographed their own collections.

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Sea Glass

The video I have been working on now is entitled "Sea Glass." While there is not too much science behind sea glass (except the small amount I could come up with for my 5 minute video) there is a lot of neat things to know about glass. For starters, a main component of glass is silica. Silica is commonly found on certain types of beaches. Those in Florida and along the gulf have lots of silica in the sand. Here in the VI, our sand is predominantly parrotfish poo, so we are less likely to make glass from it!

While silica is what makes glass.. well, glass, many other things are added to it to make it easier to turn into different types of glass. For example, boron is added to silica in Pyrex and lab glass. This makes the glass resistant towards heat changes. Lead is added to silica for "sparkle" and most everyday glass is soda-lime glass: a mixture of silica, sodium bicarbonate, and limestone.

Glass is believed to have come to humans around 3500 BC and since then, we have done tons of things with it. We have art, really AMAZING art, done in glass. Science labs everywhere use glass. Glass protects us from the elements, enables us to see, keeps the rain from our faces while we drive, stores our wine, and cooks our casseroles. You would be surprised how glass affects our everyday lives. There would be no light bulbs without it. No microscopes or telescopes. The glass would never be half empty or half full if it never existed!

For more about the history of glass check out this history of glass.

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