The Museum has samples of fulgurites, which are sometimes referred to as "petrified lightning," in the Glass in Nature gallery at the Museum. The two large sand fulgurites pictured to the right are examples from the collection.
You can read more about fulgurites and other naturally occurring glass in this brief article, Glass in Nature, posted in All About Glass on the Museum's website.
Other resources that you might find interesting include the following:
- Perkins, Sid. "Stroke of Good Fortune: A Wealth of Data from Petrified Lightning." Science News 171, no. 7 (2007): 101.
- Wright, Fred W. Jr. "Florida's Fantastic Fulgurite Find." Weatherwise 51, no. 4 (July 1998): 28-31.
For younger researchers, you might want to look at the following book:
- Graham, Ian. You Wouldn’t Want to Live without Glass! New York: Franklin Watts, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2017. (See the section on "Nature's Glass.")
You can request these and other resources through our Interlibrary Loan service.
