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Such current may propagate into silica-rich quartzose sand, mixed soil, clay, or other sediments, rapidly vaporizing and melting resistant materials within such a common dissipation regime. [3] This results in the formation of generally hollow and/or vesicular, branching assemblages of glassy tubes, crusts, and clumped masses. [4]
Following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, it was discovered in 2016 that between 0.6% and 2.5% of sand on local beaches was fused glass spheres formed during the bombing. Like trinitite, the glass contains material from the local environment, including materials from buildings destroyed in the attack. The material has been called hiroshimaite ...
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type; i.e., a soil containing more than 85 percent sand-sized particles by mass. [2]
One common way in which lechatelierite forms naturally is by very-high-temperature melting of quartz sand during a lightning strike. The result is an irregular, branching, often foamy hollow tube of silica glass called a fulgurite. [2] Not all fulgurites are lechatelierite; the original sand must be nearly pure silica.
This includes quartz, feldspar, clay minerals, iron oxides, and terrestrial organic matter. Quartz (silicon dioxide, the main component of glass) is one of the most common minerals found in nearly all rocks, and it is very resistant to abrasion, so it is a dominant component of lithogenous sediments, including sand. [1]
There is no clear relationship between the size of soil mineral components and their mineralogical nature: sand and silt particles can be calcareous as well as siliceous, [18] while textural clay (0.002 mm (7.9 × 10 −5 in)) can be made of very fine quartz particles as well as of multi-layered secondary minerals. [19]
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It is generally glassy or fine-grained in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral assemblage is predominantly quartz, sanidine, and plagioclase. It is the extrusive equivalent of granite.