Edeowie glass
Encyclopedia
Edeowie glass is a slag-like, opaque natural glass
found as vesicular or in sheet-like masses in a semi-continuous swath, about 55 km long and 10 km wide along the western side of the Flinders Ranges
near Parachilna, South Australia
. The origin of Edeowie glass has been attributed to either lightning
strikes, meteorite
or comet
impact, or mirror matter
impact.
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
found as vesicular or in sheet-like masses in a semi-continuous swath, about 55 km long and 10 km wide along the western side of the Flinders Ranges
Flinders Ranges
Flinders Ranges is the largest mountain range in South Australia, which starts approximately north west of Adelaide. The discontinuous ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna...
near Parachilna, South Australia
Parachilna, South Australia
Parachilna was once a town in South Australia. The town was first surveyed in 1863 due to its closeness to a government water well. It is on the railway line and road between Port Augusta and Leigh Creek. Today, the Prairie Hotel, railway station, airstrip and a few buildings remain...
. The origin of Edeowie glass has been attributed to either lightning
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
strikes, meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
or comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
impact, or mirror matter
Mirror matter
In physics, mirror matter, also called shadow matter or Alice matter, is a hypothetical counterpart to ordinary matter.Modern physics deals with three basic types of spatial symmetry: reflection, rotation and translation. The known elementary particles respect rotation and translation symmetry but...
impact.
See also
- desert glass
- Libyan desert glassLibyan desert glassLibyan desert glass , or great sand sea glass is a substance found in areas in the Libyan Desert. Fragments of desert glass can be found over large areas, up to tens of kilometers.- Geologic origin :...
- Darwin glassDarwin GlassDarwin glass is a natural glass found south of Queenstown in West Coast, Tasmania. It takes its name from Mount Darwin in the West Coast Range, where it was first reported, and later gave its name to Darwin Crater, a probable impact crater, and the inferred source of the glass.-Occurrence:Fragments...
- FulguriteFulguriteFulgurites are natural hollow glass tubes formed in quartzose sand, or silica, or soil by lightning strikes. They are formed when lightning with a temperature of at least instantaneously melts silica on a conductive surface and fuses grains together; the fulgurite tube is the cooled product...
External links
- Geoscience Australia, 2004, Edeowie glass. Stratigraphic Units Database.
- Perkins, S., 2001, Desert glass: is it baked Australia? Science News. v. 160, no. 21, p. 331.
- Tobin, J., 2003, Edeowie Glass. Meteorite-Times Magazine. December 2003.