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Petrified Lightning
By Emily Sohn / February 16, 2007 Lightning has amazing powers. One bolt heats the air to 30,000 degrees C. T hats f ive times as hot as the surf ace of the sun. Lightning can f righten pets and kids, start f ires, destroy trees, and kill people. Lightning also has the power to make glass.

When lightning strikes the ground, it fuses sand in the soil into tubes of glass called fulgurites. L. Carion/Carion Minerals, Paris When a bolt of lightning strikes a sandy surf ace, the electricity can melt the sand. T his melted substance combines with other materials. T hen it hardens into lumps of glass called f ulgurites. (Fulgur is the Latin word f or lightning.) Now, scientists are studying f ulgurites in Egypt to piece together a history of the regions climate. T hunderstorms are rare in the desert of southwest Egypt. Between 1998 and 2005, satellites in space detected hardly any lightning in the area. Amid the regions sandy dunes, however, f ulgurites are common. T hese lumps and tubes of glass suggest that lightning used to strike there more of ten in the past. Recently, scientists f rom the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City studied f ulgurites that had been collected in Egypt in 1999. When heated, minerals in f ulgurites glow. Over time, exposure to natural radiation causes small def ects in the glassy f ulgurites. T he older the material is, the more def ects there are, and the stronger the minerals glow at certain wavelengths of light when theyre heated. By measuring the intensity of the glow when the samples were heated, the researchers f ound that the f ulgurites f ormed around 15,000 years ago.

The gases trapped in bubbles within samples of fulgurite provide clues to ancient soil and atmospheric chemistry and climate. Rafael Navarro-Gonzlez T he scientists, f or the f irst time, also looked at the gases trapped inside bubbles in the glass. T heir chemical analyses showed that the landscape could have supported shrubs and grasses 15,000 years ago. Now, theres only sand. Today, shrubs and grasses grow in the hot, dry climate of Niger, 600 kilometers (375 miles) south of the Egypt site. T he researchers suspect that, when the f ulgurites were created, the climate in southwest Egypt was similar to present-day conditions in Niger. Fulgurites and their gas bubbles are good windows into the past, scientists say, because such glasses remain stable over time. Analyzing the Egyptian f ulgurites, in particular, is an interesting way of showing that the climate in this region has changed, says Kenneth E. Pickering, an atmospheric scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Even if youre af raid of thunderstorms, the amazing powers of lightning are bound to impress you! And lightning strikes can even tell a story of ancient times.E. Sohn Going Deeper: Perkins, Sid. 2007. Stroke of good f ortune: A wealth of data f rom petrif ied lightning. Science News 171(Feb. 17):101. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070217/f ob5.asp . You can learn more about f ulgurites at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgurite (Wikipedia).