Diatoms are algae with distinctive, transparent cell walls made of hydrated silica. Morphology. Diatoms are algae with distinctive, transparent cell walls made of silicon dioxide hydrated with a small amount of water (Si02 + H20). Silica is the main component of glass and hydrated silica is very like the mineral opal, making these algae, often called algae in glass houses more like algae in opal houses.
https://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/about/what_are_diatoms
Silica is very common in nature and makes up 26% of the earth's crust by weight. Various forms of silica include sand, emerald, quartz, feldspar, mica, clay, asbestos, and glass. Silicon, a component of silica, does not exist naturally in its pure form. It usually reacts with oxygen and water to form silicon dioxide.
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/degen.html
If I can tell you how a single diatom--a type of phytoplankton--can respond to a passing cloud, then I can tell you how diatom populations respond to passing clouds. It finds wide use in filtering beer, wine and is an ingredient in other products because the diatom fossils have lots of minute holes.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/diatom
Kenn Perreault. Diatoms (class Bacillariophyta) are a type of mainly aquatic, photosynthetic algae. Similar to many other algae, they can live as unicellular organisms, colonial, or filamentous. Unlike most algae, though, they have a solid shells made of silica.
http://academics.smcvt.edu/dfacey/AquaticBiology/Freshwater%20Pages/Diatoms.html
What you are seeing is Brown Diatom Algae and it is like no other algae, green, red or brown, that you have ever dealt with before. Diatoms are photosynthesizing (using light to produce its own food) algae, as are many other types of algae. Diatoms are found in the oceans, in lakes, ponds, rivers and even in that mud puddle in your back yard and damp soil. In other words, they are found anywhere there is water.
https://www.thespruce.com/brown-diatom-algae-in-saltwater-aquariums-4037424
Historical Examples. 1  diatom ooze is the characteristic deposit in high southern latitudes. 2  In fact, the two pass without any sharp boundary into each other, and both present transitions to the diatom ooze. 3  This diatom is often found in abundance in the water supplies of cities.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/diatom
diatom - microscopic unicellular marine or freshwater colonial alga having cell walls impregnated with silica. phytoplankton - photosynthetic or plant constituent of plankton; mainly unicellular algae.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/diatom
Didymo (Didymosphenia geminata) is a freshwater colonial diatom originally found at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere including the British Isles and Europe, where blooms historically occurred, and North America where records before the 1990s are much-less common and blooms were not reported (Spaulding and Elwell, 2007; Blanco and Ector, ...
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/diatom
As algae, diatoms are protists. Diatoms have been placed in the division Bacillariophyta, which is distinguished by the presence of an inorganic cell wall composed of hydrated silica. There are an estimated 20,000 to 2 million species of diatom on Earth.
https://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/about/what_are_diatoms
Diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms. Their skeletons are made of a natural substance called silica. Over a long period of time, diatoms accumulated in the sediment of rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. Today, silica deposits are mined from these areas.
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/degen.html
what is diatoms
Diatoms are algae with distinctive, transparent cell walls made of silicon dioxide hydrated with a small amount of water.