Fulgurite

Fulgurites (from the Latin fulgur, meaning “lightning”) are natural tubes, clumps, or masses of sintered, vitrified, and/or fused soil, sand, rock, organic debris and other sediments that sometimes form when lightning discharges into ground.

Fulgurites are classified as a variety of the mineraloid lechatelierite. When lightning strikes a grounding substrate, upwards of 100 million volts (100 MV) rapidly discharged into the ground. This charge propagates into and rapidly vaporizes and melts silica-rich quartzose sand, mixed soil, clay, or other sediments. This results in the formation of hollow, branching assemblages of glassy, tubes, crusts, and vesicular masses.

Fulgurites have no fixed composition. Their chemical composition determined by the physical and chemical properties of whatever material struck by lightning.

 

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