Trivia

Hard

The Mineral Fulgurite Is Created By?

Nuclear Detonations
Meteor Impacts
Lightning
Volcanoes
Lightning striking a sandy beach.
Andrew Malone/Flickr

Answer: Lightning

With a little luck, a careful eye, and a receding storm on the horizon, a trip to the beach might just yield a really unique find: fulgurite.

Fulgurite is a mineral (or, more technically, a mineraloid as it lacks a uniform crystalline structure) that forms when a lightning strike hits sand. In that intense and brief moment where the sand is superheated to around 3,272 degrees Fahrenheit (1,800 degrees Celsius), a hollow, branching tube, crust, or vesicular mass of cloudy glass is formed around the path of the lightning.

Fulgurite belongs to the family of mineraloids know as lechatelierite, all formed by the introduction of high pressure and/or temperature to a body of silica. When lechatelierite is formed as the result of a meteorite impact, for example, the resulting blobs of glass (shaped that way because they cool as they fly away from the impact site) are known as tektites.

More Trivia Questions

Trivia

Very Hard

In America The Game Of Billiards Is Called “Pool” As A Result Of?

Trivia

Hard

The Best Selling PC Game Of All Time Is?

Trivia

Hard

Which Candy Was Originally Marketed As A Smoking Cessation Tool?

Trivia

Hard

What Is The Only Other Body In Our Solar System With Surface Liquid?

Trivia

Easy

What Common Beer Brewing Ingredient Is In The Marijuana Family?

Trivia

Hard

Many Of John Hughes’ Films Take Place In The Shared Imaginary Town Of?

Trivia

Easy

What Popular Operating System Has Sugary Sweet Code Names?

Trivia

Very Hard

What Did The Inventor Of The Pet Rock Later Try To Sell Americans Bit By Bit?

Trivia

Hard

The “Ye” In Archaic Names Like “Ye Olde Shoppe” Is Derived From A Middle English Symbol Called A?

Trivia

Hard

Which Planet Did Carl Sagan Want To Terraform First?