#petrified lightning

[vpofcookies]

Fulgurite post!!

Fulgurites (or sintered soil or petrified lightning) are super cool! They're branching tubes of glass formed when lightning hits sand, in layman's terms, fossilized lightning! If you think the ages of the rocks around you are cool, imagine holding the remnant of an ancient storm!

They can be found all over the world, but are much more common in areas with lots of sand, and are pretty delicate. Finding big ones or ones with the preserved lichtenberg branches are pretty rare.

This one was delicate enough that it was see-through

You can actually calculate how powerful the lightning strike was by the diameter of the interior of the fulgurite! They may look sandy on the outside, but all of them have a hollow smooth glass interior.

Here are some of the ones I found at a sand mine (estimated to be around 500,000 years old)!

[earthstory]

What's A Fulgurite? A Fulgurite (from the Latin, Fulgar, meaning Thunderbolt) is a hollow tube made from glass,, formed in quartz rich sedimentary rocks when lightening that is over 1800 degrees Celsius hits the rock and instantly melts the silica and fuses the grains. The entire process only takes 1 second. Fulgurites are sometimes referred to as petrified lightening or "palaeo-lightening" and have been found in most countries around the world. They can be very large, sometimes up to metres in length and several cm's in diameter. If you want to find out more about Fulgurites, including where to find them and how to spot them, head to any of the links below: -LL http://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/gladasked/gladfulgurites.htm http://www.ira.usf.edu/cam/exhibitions/1998_12_McCollum/supplemental_didactics/33.Regina.pdf http://www.minresco.com/fulgurites/fulgurites.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgurite

[deadstonemasonssociety]

Fulgurite is a hollow, glassy tube formed when lightning strikes the ground. The tube has a rough exterior and either a rough or smooth interior. Fulgurites may be branched like a tree or Lichtenberg figure. They come in a range of colors, including white, brown, green, and black. Most fulgurites are impure silica glass (SiO2) and are classified as the mineraloid lechatelierite. Other forms of lechatelierite include tektites and trinitite.

The word fulgurite comes from the Latin word fulgur, which means thunderbolt. Sometimes fulgurites are called “petrified lightning.”

Make a Rocket Fulgurite

Rather than waiting for lightning to strike, draw the lightning using a D model rocket. Attach the rocket to a spool of copper wire and the end of the wire to a bucket of sand. Launch the rocket at a thunderhead. Anecdotally, this “Ben Franklin” method is highly successful. But, it’s not recommended because launching a rocket during a thunderstorm isn’t safe!

What Is Fulgurite? Where to Find It and How to Make It

Learn what fulgurite is. See where to find it and how to make fulgurites yourself using different methods.

[winnyweatherwatch]

Fulgurites : What happens when lightning strikes sand

Fulgurites : What happens when lightning strikes sand

What happens when lightning hits sand? We get fulgurites .

Lightning is five times hotter than sun and when it hits the land, the temperature created by it is sufficient to melt the sand and create glass.

Fulgurites or Petrified Lightning

Sand is made of silica (SiO2) and when lightning hits the sand, it melts under the extreme heat and fuses into it into a glassy and shiny cylindrical…

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[calihunt]

[the-telescope-times]

Zap! 'Petrified Lightning' Could Reveal the Shocking Heat of the Strikes

Petrified lightning, or rocks that have been zapped and superheated by a lightning strike, could reveal details about the shocking weather phenomenon, new research suggests.

When lightning strikes a rock, the huge jolt of current heats up the material for microseconds, vaporizes substances inside and forms a glassy rock called fulgurite, study co-author Jiangzhi Chen, an applied physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said here Wednesday (Dec. 14) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

By analyzing the bubbles that form inside fulgurite, Chen and his colleagues can calculate hot the material gets, and that, in turn, can reveal insights into how exactly lightning works, Chen said.

Read more ~ LiveScience

Images: Top: Lightning strikes during a thunderstorm in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 6, 2015.     Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images Bottom: Preserved Artificial Fulgerite Petrified Lightning.

[sciencenetlinks]

Petrified Lightning

Fulgurite, also known as "petrified lightning," is created by lightning striking sand and fusing it, at temperatures exceeding 2000° Celsius, nearly instantaneously into glass. The Latin word fulgur means "lightning bolt."

Fulgurite generally is a hollow, branched tube, following the shape of the lightning as it entered the earth, with a smooth, glassy interior and a rough, porous exterior. It can occur in a variety of colors, from black or tan to green or translucent white, depending on impurities found in the sand from which it formed. The largest excavated fulgurite is 17 feet long, but it is more common to find small pieces because of their brittle nature. While fulgurites occur naturally, scientists and artists have found that driving a tall rod into sand in an area expected to experience thunderstorms can increase the odds of attracting lightning and the subsequent fulgurite formation. They also can be replicated in a lab setting.

A second, even more rare type of fulgurite forms when lightning strikes not sand, but rocks on mountain summits. Rock fulgurites appears as a coating of glass on the surface of a rock and as arteries of embedded glass where they have filled fissures in the rock.

Fulgurites are a type of lechatelierite, a mineral-like silica glass. In addition to being caused by lightning strikes, lechatelierites also can be formed by volcanic eruptions, nuclear blasts (resulting in trinitites), and meteorite impacts (resulting in tektites).

Learn more.

Image Credit:  Kathy__ (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0), via Flickr

[yetibaba]

From Wikipedia: Fulgurites (from the Latin fulgur, meaning “thunderbolt”) are a variety of the mineraloid lechatelierite. They are natural hollow glass tubes often formed during lightning strikes, in quartzosesand, silica, or soil. Sometimes they are referred to as petrified lightning. Fulgurites may be instances of Lichtenberg figures, which are branching patterns formed by high-voltage discharges such as lightning.