The lab became a focal point for the study of silicon metabolism and biomineralization at the molecular level, embracing experimental techniques, from elegant electron microscopy of diatom shells to gene cloning and the expression of silicon transporting proteins in frog eggs.

The only analogue I can think of is 'the shallops of diatom shells that our youngsters used to sled along the thennocline; but evidently what's meant is something much bigger.

Over the millennia the periods of high productivity, followed by sudden mortality, produced showers of diatom shells forming layers and a "chalk line" on the sea floor.

Also, a lot of the carbon in the ocean is fixed in dead diatom shells.

The continental shelf has a covering of fine muds, derived mainly from the great continental rivers, and siliceous diatom shells from the plankton.

It might also be possible to use diatom shells as delivery vehicles for drugs, suggests chemical engineer Tony Rogers, an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University (Houghton, Michigan, United States).

In another approach, Hildebrand is purifying the proteins present in diatom shells.

Diatomite, also called Diatomaceous Earth and Kieselguhr, a substance composed primarily of fossilized diatom shells.