* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Pendulum Announce Homecoming 2026 Australian Tour – yahoo.com

    Pendulum Announces Thrilling Homecoming Tour Across Australia in 2026

    ITV Studios Launches New Entertainment Label – Global Bulletin – IMDb

    ITV Studios Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Label

    TS Entertainment bringing Malibu Jack’s to former Owensboro mall – Lane Report

    TS Entertainment Launches Malibu Jack’s at Former Owensboro Mall Location

    Jenny Han Dropped a Major ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg Revealing [SPOILER] – yahoo.com

    Jenny Han Just Unveiled a Huge ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg That Changes Everything [SPOILER]

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer With Emotional Song ‘Bones’ – yahoo.com

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer with Emotional New Song ‘Bones

    Country music star apologizes after drunken show ends with cops taking him down: ‘I’m not OK’ – PennLive.com

    Country Music Star Apologizes After Drunken Show Ends in Police Intervention: ‘I’m Not OK

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

    Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

    Gene Associated With Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers Identified – Technology Networks

    Breakthrough Discovery Uncovers Gene Behind Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers

    Monkey Island LNG Picks ConocoPhillips’ Liquefaction Technology – Hart Energy

    Monkey Island LNG Selects ConocoPhillips’ Advanced Liquefaction Technology for Next-Gen Energy Solutions

    Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (CRDO) Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates – Yahoo Finance

    Credo Technology Group Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Expectations

    The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent – The Economist

    Exciting Opportunity: Become Our Next Science and Technology Correspondent!

    Blockchain lender Figure Technology seeks to raise up to $526M in IPO (FIGR:Pending) – Seeking Alpha

    Blockchain Lender Figure Technology Sets Sights on $526M in Thrilling IPO Launch

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Pendulum Announce Homecoming 2026 Australian Tour – yahoo.com

    Pendulum Announces Thrilling Homecoming Tour Across Australia in 2026

    ITV Studios Launches New Entertainment Label – Global Bulletin – IMDb

    ITV Studios Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Label

    TS Entertainment bringing Malibu Jack’s to former Owensboro mall – Lane Report

    TS Entertainment Launches Malibu Jack’s at Former Owensboro Mall Location

    Jenny Han Dropped a Major ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg Revealing [SPOILER] – yahoo.com

    Jenny Han Just Unveiled a Huge ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg That Changes Everything [SPOILER]

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer With Emotional Song ‘Bones’ – yahoo.com

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer with Emotional New Song ‘Bones

    Country music star apologizes after drunken show ends with cops taking him down: ‘I’m not OK’ – PennLive.com

    Country Music Star Apologizes After Drunken Show Ends in Police Intervention: ‘I’m Not OK

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

    Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

    Gene Associated With Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers Identified – Technology Networks

    Breakthrough Discovery Uncovers Gene Behind Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers

    Monkey Island LNG Picks ConocoPhillips’ Liquefaction Technology – Hart Energy

    Monkey Island LNG Selects ConocoPhillips’ Advanced Liquefaction Technology for Next-Gen Energy Solutions

    Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (CRDO) Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates – Yahoo Finance

    Credo Technology Group Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Expectations

    The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent – The Economist

    Exciting Opportunity: Become Our Next Science and Technology Correspondent!

    Blockchain lender Figure Technology seeks to raise up to $526M in IPO (FIGR:Pending) – Seeking Alpha

    Blockchain Lender Figure Technology Sets Sights on $526M in Thrilling IPO Launch

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Strange yellow glass found in Libyan desert may have formed from lost meteor impact

December 3, 2023
in Science
Strange yellow glass found in Libyan desert may have formed from lost meteor impact
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The pieces of Libyan desert glass that formed the basis of the study.

The pieces of Libyan desert glass that formed the basis of the study.
(Image credit: Elizaveta Kovaleva)

The Great Sand Sea Desert stretches over an area of 72,000 square kilometers linking Egypt and Libya. If you find yourself in a particular part of the desert in south-east Libya and south-western parts of Egypt, you’ll spot pieces of yellow glass scattered across the sandy landscape.

It was first described in a scientific paper in 1933 and is known as Libyan desert glass. Mineral collectors value it for its beauty, its relative rarity  and its mystery. A pendant found in Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb contains a piece of the glass. Natural glasses are found elsewhere in the world; examples include moldavites from the Ries crater in Europe and tektites from the Ivory Coast. But none are as rich in silica as Libyan desert glass, nor are they found in such large lumps and quantities.

The origin of the glass has been the subject of debate among scientists for almost a century. Some suggested it might be from volcanoes on the moon. Others propose it’s the product of lightning strikes (“fulgurites” – glass that forms from fusion of sand and soil where they are hit by lightning). Other theories suggest it’s the result of sedimentary or hydrothermal processes; caused by a massive explosion of a meteor in the air; or that it came from a nearby meteorite crater.

Now, thanks to advanced microscopy technology, we believe we have the answer. Along with colleagues from universities and science centres in Germany, Egypt and Morocco, I have identified Libyan desert glass as originating from the impact of a meteorite on the Earth’s surface.

Space collisions are a primary process in the solar system, as planets and their natural satellites accreted via the asteroids and planet embryos (also called planetesimals) colliding with each other. These impacts helped our planet to assemble, too.

Great sand desert map in Libya.

Great sand desert map in Libya. (Image credit: Elizaveta Kovaleva)

Under the microscope

In 1996 scientists determined that the glass was close to 29 million years old. A later study suggested the source material was composed of quartz grains, coated with mixed clay minerals and iron and titanium oxides.

This latter finding raised more questions, since the proposed age is older than the matching source material in the relevant area of the Great Sand Sea desert. To put it simply: those source materials didn’t exist in that location 29 million years ago.

For our recent study, a co-author obtained two pieces of the glass from a local who had collected them in the Al Jaouf region in south-eastern Libya.

We studied the samples with a state-of-the-art transmission electron microscopy (TEM) technique, which allows us to see tiny particles of material, 20,000 times smaller than the thickness of a paper sheet. Using this super-high magnification technique, we found small minerals in this glass: different types of zirconium oxide (ZrO2).

Minerals are composed of chemical elements, atoms of which form regular three-dimensional packaging. Imagine putting eggs or soda bottles on the shelf of a supermarket: layers on top of layers to ensure the most efficient storage. Similarly, atoms assemble into a crystal lattice that is unique for each mineral. Minerals that have the same chemical composition but different atomic structure (different ways of atom packaging into the crystal lattice) are called polymorphs.

One polymorph of ZrO2 that we observed in Libyan desert glass is called cubic zirconia – the kind seen in some jewellery as a synthetic replacement for diamonds. This mineral can only form at a high temperature between 2,250 degrees Celsius and 2,700 degrees Celsius.

Another polymorph of ZrO2 that we observed was a very rare one called ortho-II or OII. It forms at very high pressure – about 130,000 atmospheres, a unit of pressure.

Such pressure and temperature conditions provided us with the proof for the meteorite impact origin of the glass. That’s because such conditions can only be obtained in the Earth’s crust by a meteorite impact or the explosion of an atomic bomb.

High-resolution TEM image showing tiny inclusion of cubic zirconia inside newly formed zircon. The crystal lattices of two minerals are visible, looking like a fabric texture.

High-resolution TEM image showing tiny inclusion of cubic zirconia inside newly formed zircon. The crystal lattices of two minerals are visible, looking like a fabric texture. (Image credit: Elizaveta Kovaleva)

More mysteries to solve

If our finding is correct (and we believe it is), the parental crater – where the meteorite hit the Earth’s surface – should be somewhere nearby. The nearest known meteorite craters, named GP and Oasis, are 2 kilometers and 18 kilometers in diameter respectively, and quite far away from where the glass we tested was found. They are too far and too small to be considered the parental craters for such massive amounts of impact glass, all concentrated in one spot.

The Great Sand Sea desert.

The Great Sand Sea desert. (Image credit: Sylvester Adams)

So, while we’ve solved part of the mystery, more questions remain. Where is the parental crater? How big is it – and where is it? Could it have been eroded, deformed or covered by sand? More investigations will be required, likely in the form of remote sensing studies coupled with geophysics.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Stay up to date on the latest science news by signing up for our Essentials newsletter.

In 2010, I completed an MSc degree with distinction at the Department of Petrology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia; and in 2015, I completed a PhD at the Department of Lithospheric Research, University of Vienna, Austria. From 2015 to 2019, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Geology at the University of the Free State, South Africa, and from 2019 to 2020 served as a senior lecturer in the same department. Currently, I am a lecturer at the Department of Earth Science, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, and an Alexander Von Humboldt scholar at the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ-Potsdam, Germany. I hold a scientific rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa in the Y category. Throughout my career, I lived in four countries and visited five continents for field work, worked in 10 research institutions, participated in more than 30 scientific conferences and congresses with presentations, and produced 36 peer-reviewed publications. Since receiving a Ph.D. in 2015, I have won 17 competitive large and small grants, provided 30 reviews for scientific journals and funding agencies, designed and presented five university courses as well as two courses on academic writing, graduated 1 MSc student (Magna Cum Laude) and 5 Honours students (one with distinction).

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Live Science – https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/strange-yellow-glass-found-in-libyan-desert-may-have-formed-from-lost-meteor-impact

Tags: sciencestrangeYellow
Previous Post

Science news this week: Atmospheric holes and smarter glasses

Next Post

Strong earthquake that sparked a tsunami warning leaves 1 dead amid widespread panic in Philippines

Abby Dow and England near record territory as Australia search for upset – The Guardian

Abby Dow and England Close in on Record as Australia Hunts for an Upset

September 6, 2025
America is getting the economy we voted for – Noah Smith | Substack

America Is Finally Experiencing the Economy We Created

September 6, 2025
Pendulum Announce Homecoming 2026 Australian Tour – yahoo.com

Pendulum Announces Thrilling Homecoming Tour Across Australia in 2026

September 6, 2025
HHS responds to report about autism and acetaminophen : Shots – Health News – NPR

HHS Addresses New Findings on Autism and Acetaminophen Use

September 6, 2025
September 2, 2025: Trump administration news – CNN

September 2, 2025: Trump administration news – CNN

September 6, 2025
Blending art, culture and native plants at Wakamatsu – Mountain Democrat

Discover the Harmony of Art, Culture, and Native Plants at Wakamatsu

September 6, 2025
The Two-Body Problem for Women in Science – Nautilus | Science Connected

The Two-Body Problem for Women in Science – Nautilus | Science Connected

September 6, 2025
How AI and Automation are Speeding Up Science and Discovery – Berkeley Lab News Center (.gov)

How AI and Automation Are Accelerating Breakthroughs in Scientific Discovery

September 6, 2025

American Trust Investment Services Serves as Exclusive Placement Agent in $9 Million Follow-On Offering for Nova LifeStyle, Inc. – Morningstar

September 6, 2025
Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

September 6, 2025

Categories

Archives

September 2025
MTWTFSS
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930 
« Aug    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (809)
  • Economy (828)
  • Entertainment (21,705)
  • General (16,884)
  • Health (9,869)
  • Lifestyle (840)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (829)
  • Politics (835)
  • Science (16,038)
  • Sports (21,326)
  • Technology (15,808)
  • World (809)

Recent News

Abby Dow and England near record territory as Australia search for upset – The Guardian

Abby Dow and England Close in on Record as Australia Hunts for an Upset

September 6, 2025
America is getting the economy we voted for – Noah Smith | Substack

America Is Finally Experiencing the Economy We Created

September 6, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version