4/20/2023 0 Comments Lightning strikes sandFollow Live Science, Facebook & Google+. "I've had some close calls with thunderstorms in the field, where I've had to throw down my metal instruments and run," Gieré said.Įlizabeth Goldbaum is on Twitter. "Once it was pointed out to me, I started seeing it again and again," he said. The researchers warned outdoors people exploring or researching rock outcrops to be on the lookout for shiny black glaze, since it might indicate a site is prone to lightning strikes. Most people know that lightning strikes can destroy - but it turns out, they can also create. The extent of the lamellae - which typically spread about 3 micrometers wide, a small fraction of the width of a human hair - indicates how far the lightning bolt's energy was distributed. ![]() ![]() "It's like if someone pushes you, you rearrange your body to be comfortable," Gieré said. Lamellae formed by both impacts shared similar features. The researchers determined the force that formed the lamellae on the lightning-struck rocks by looking at lamellae formed by meteor impacts. To create such a pattern, the lightning strike must have pummeled the rock with a force of around 10 gigapascals, which is equivalent to an impact 20 million times greater than a boxer's punch. Just beneath the fulgurite layer, the researchers found the shock lamellaes. The researchers detected elevated concentrations of sulfur dioxide and phosphorus pentoxide, likely left over from lichens that lived on the rock's surface in the time leading up to the lightning strike. Answer (1 of 2): There are two main chemicals that have strong odors produced in the air when an electrical discharge takes place in it, and lightning is simply an enormous electrical discharge. The fulgurite was also porous, similar to foam the researchers suspect it got that way when the sizzling lighting vaporized the rock's surface. Fulgurites form below the surface, but can be revealed when winds or tides brush away the surface sand. They often resemble tree roots, mirroring the path taken by the lightnings dissipating energy. ![]() The fulgurites looked like wet, dark algae and formed in the crevices of a jagged fracture that sliced through a granite rock outcrop there.Īfter looking at very thin, almost transparent, slices of the fulgurites under a powerful microscope, the researchers noticed that the black fulgurite looked glossy, "almost like a ceramic glaze," Gieré said. When lightning strikes soil or sand an extreme heat phenomenon occurs but some of the viral snaps arent all they seem. The lightning strike melts the sand particles, which as they cool, meld together and cohere with other particles around them. The researchers found the shock lamellae in glassy fulgurites in Les Pradals, in southern France.
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