Experts told how glass comes out of sand after a lightning strike

Experts told how lightning can create glass from ordinary sand. This phenomenon, although very rare, can occur from time to time in nature due to the coincidence of some factors.

Lightning under certain conditions can melt sand, silica and even some soils. When this happens, a discharge whose temperature exceeds 1800 degrees merges the sand into the quartz glass underground. An explosion of a billion Joules radiates through the earth, forming fulgurite - hollow glass tubes with a sandy surface, called petrified lightning. The latter is a residential, organically-looking artifact of sand that has been overheated and then quickly chilled.

A temperature of 1800 degrees Celsius is necessary to instantly melt the sand and form fulgurite, and they were found throughout the world, but relatively rarely. Sand fulgurites are the most common and are usually found in beach or desert areas containing clean and dry sand. They resemble roots or branching tube-like structures having a rough surface covered with partially molten grains of sand.

The size and length of fulgurite depends on the strength of the lightning strike and the thickness of the sand layer. One of the most striking examples that have been discovered in our time, reached more than 16 feet in length and was found in northern Florida.

Source: https://actualnews.org