Live Science
By
April 14, 2023
A potentially brand new mineral may have been hiding inside a chunk of “fossilized lightning” from Florida, scientists have revealed.
“We have never seen this material occur naturally on Earth,” Mathew Pasek, a geoscientist at the University of South Florida, said in a statement. “Minerals similar to it can be found in meteorites and space, but we’ve never seen this exact material anywhere.”
The fossilized lightning chunk, or fulgurite, was created when lightning struck a tree near New Port Richey. Fulgurites form when powerful lightning bolts discharge through the ground, which melts and fuses any nearby soil, sand, rock and organic debris into a singular metallic-looking lump.