Fulgurite

What happens when lightning strikes the ground? You would think all that energy would do something, and you'd be right. When lightning strikes sand or loose sediment, it vaporizes a wormhole through the dirt and melts a glassy frothy sheath around the space. The solidified result is a fulgurite. See it in the Rock Picture gallery. A similar artifact was created when the first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert on 16 July 1945: a wide expanse of melted greenish glass. Pieces of that atomic fulgurite were gathered up and sold as trinitite. See that one, and other images, in the Geology and Society Picture Gallery. Am I thinking about all this because I got sunburned yesterday? Probably.