Environment

Mystery behind age-old Egyptian glass formation clarified

by Atithee-Apoorva
May 18, 2019 13:23

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100-year-old Egyptian glass which was found had many related conjectures and related presumptions regarding its formation. The canary yellow colored glass was found spread over several thousand square kilometers in western Egypt. Researchers from Curtin University, Australia were deeply researching about its formation until this date, when it has been clarified that not the atmospheric outburst rather the meteorological activities has led to the formation of the glass.

Tiny grains of this glass was being examined by the researching team of Australia that led to the discovery of zircon mineral in its samples. The presence of this mineral depicts the evidence of containing high-pressure mineral named reidite that is only formed during meteorite activity and impact.

There were several confusions regarding the impact that cause the formation of this glass, which was formed 29 million years ago and was famously used to make scarab which is, in turn, a part of King Tut’s pectoral.

The lead author Aaron Cavosie had many things to say about this, to state the exact statements’:

“It has been a topic of ongoing debate as to whether the glass formed during meteorite impact or during an airburst, which happens when asteroids called Near Earth Objects explode and deposit energy in the Earth’s atmosphere. Both meteorite impacts and airbursts can cause melting, however, only meteorite impacts create shock waves that form high-pressure minerals, so finding evidence of former ‘reidite’ confirms it was created as the result of a meteorite impact,” he said.

Fact that the impact of atmospheric outburst might have an impact on its formation gained fame and was talked about after the incident of Russia in 2013 that had a lot of damage created.

He added, “Previous models suggested that Libyan Desert glass represented a large, 100-megatonnes (Mt) class airburst, but our results show this is not the case. Meteorite impacts are catastrophic events, but they are not common. Airbursts happen more frequently, but we now know not to expect a Libyan Desert glass-forming event in the near future, which is cause for some comfort,”