Petrified lightning

[Richard]

Fulgurites are formed when lightning strikes the ground.

“If a normal citizen tries to dig one of these out of the ground,” Uman said, “they would destroy it because fulgurites are so fragile. It takes experts who are skilled in working with special tools and are used to digging up fossil bones. It’s definitely an art.”

I think they just want to keep them for their own discovery. According to NOAA, lightning ground strikes number in the millions per year just in the USA. Many of those strikes have multiple strike points. So, figure of those 30 million or so ground strikes per year, there must be hundreds of millions of fulgurites of various sizes throughout the USA.

http://news.ufl.edu/archive/1997/05...worlds-longest-solidified-lightning-bolt.html

Google for fulgurite images.

 

[Henning]

From what I have seen on sand beaches, I give some weight to what he says. The tendrils of glass that form as 'roots' are pretty delicate, I would imagine that having soil involved would make them even more so.

 

[Richard]

Not in contention is that they be fragile. My objection is that the warning is given, if only implied, that those lacking training cannot be careful enough to achieve the required level of work.

And if the sand sculpture should fall apart, gee oh well. Be carefuller TM next time. Don't tell me that scientists haven't had their accidents at the digs.

 

[James331]

Or just get a model rocket and some wire

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=buSaGIoNXu8

 

[flyingron]

Contrary to the movie "Sweet Home Alabama" they're not quite as pure glass as that movie shows. Here's a pretty good item from Scientific American on fulgurites.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...trikes-sand-the-science-behind-a-viral-photo/

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

I have numerous electronic devices that must be full of fulgurites; let me know if you would prefer a wifi modem, a Nortel telephone system, a desktop computer, or a so-called "surge protector".

"lightning rod" Dave

 

[flyingron]

I lost everything connected to my phoneline: my phones, my dsl modem (alas I have a stack of these because CenturyLinks customer support answer to everything is to ship me another modem). The painful one is lightning took out my well pump. $7000 later...