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Vitrified Sand
Vitrified sand is sand that has been heated to a high enough temperature to undergo vitrification, which is the melting of the silicon dioxide or quartz that compose common sand. Vitrified sand is a type of natural glass, contrasted with manufactured glass in which soda ash or potash are added to lower the melting point. Pure quartz melts at . There are several natural processes that produce more or less melted sand and one man-made form: * fulgurite is sand fused by a lightning bolt hitting sand. * Impactite such as tektite is sand fused by the compressive heat of a meteor strike including moldavite, a gem quality stone mined in some locations. *frit is partially fused sand plus other chemicals created in the process of glaze and glass making. *Nuclear melt glass, formed by the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Examples include trinitite, created during the Trinity nuclear test Volcanic glass Volcanic glass is the amorphous solid, amorphous (uncrystallized) product of rapidly cool ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type; i.e., a soil containing more than 85 percent sand-sized particles by mass. The composition of sand varies, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non- tropical coastal settings is silica (silicon dioxide, or SiO2), usually in the form of quartz. Calcium carbonate is the second most common type of sand, for example, aragonite, which has mostly been created, over the past 500million years, by various forms of life, like coral and shellfish. For example, it is the primary form of sand apparent in areas where reefs have dominated the ecosystem for millions of years like the Caribbean. Somewhat more rarely, sand may be composed of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitrification
Vitrification (from Latin ''vitreum'', "glass" via French ''vitrifier'') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non- crystalline amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses possess a higher degree of connectivity with the same Hausdorff dimensionality of bonds as crystals: dimH = 3. In the production of ceramics, vitrification is responsible for its impermeability to water. Vitrification is usually achieved by heating materials until they liquidize, then cooling the liquid, often rapidly, so that it passes through the glass transition to form a glassy solid. Certain chemical reactions also result in glasses. In terms of chemistry, vitrification is characteristic for amorphous materials or disordered systems and occurs when bonding between elementary particles (atoms, molecules, forming blocks) becomes higher than a certain threshold value. Thermal fluctuations break the bonds; therefore, the lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silicon Dioxide
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one of the most complex and most abundant families of materials, existing as a compound of several minerals and as a synthetic product. Notable examples include fused quartz, fumed silica, silica gel, opal and aerogels. It is used in structural materials, microelectronics (as an electrical insulator), and as components in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Structure In the majority of silicates, the silicon atom shows tetrahedral coordination, with four oxygen atoms surrounding a central Si atomsee 3-D Unit Cell. Thus, SiO2 forms 3-dimensional network solids in which each silicon atom is covalently bonded in a tetrahedral manner to 4 oxygen atoms. In contrast, CO2 is a linear molecule. The starkly different structures of the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical formula of SiO2. Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earth's continental crust, behind feldspar. Quartz exists in two forms, the normal α-quartz and the high-temperature β-quartz, both of which are chiral. The transformation from α-quartz to β-quartz takes place abruptly at . Since the transformation is accompanied by a significant change in volume, it can easily induce microfracturing of ceramics or rocks passing through this temperature threshold. There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are classified as gemstones. Since antiquity, varieties of quartz have been the most commonly used minerals in the making of jewelry and hardstone carvings, especially in Eurasia. Quartz is the mineral defini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching) of the molten form; some glasses such as volcanic glass are naturally occurring. The most familiar, and historically the oldest, types of manufactured glass are "silicate glasses" based on the chemical compound silica (silicon dioxide, or quartz), the primary constituent of sand. Soda–lime glass, containing around 70% silica, accounts for around 90% of manufactured glass. The term ''glass'', in popular usage, is often used to refer only to this type of material, although silica-free glasses often have desirable properties for applications in modern communications technology. Some objects, such as drinking glasses and eyeglasses, are so commonly made of silicate-based glass that they are simply called by the name of the material. D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soda Ash
Sodium carbonate, , (also known as washing soda, soda ash and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2CO3 and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield moderately alkaline solutions in water. Historically, it was extracted from the ashes of plants growing in sodium-rich soils. Because the ashes of these sodium-rich plants were noticeably different from ashes of wood (once used to produce potash), sodium carbonate became known as "soda ash". It is produced in large quantities from sodium chloride and limestone by the Solvay process. Hydrates Sodium carbonate is obtained as three hydrates and as the anhydrous salt: * sodium carbonate decahydrate (natron), Na2CO3·10H2O, which readily effloresces to form the monohydrate. * sodium carbonate heptahydrate (not known in mineral form), Na2CO3·7H2O. * sodium carbonate monohydrate ( thermonatrite), Na2CO3·H2O. Also known as crystal carbonate. * anhydrous sodium carbonate ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potash
Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form.Potash USGS 2008 Minerals Yearbook The name derives from ''pot ash'', plant ashes or wood ash soaked in water in a pot, the primary means of manufacturing potash before the Industrial Era. The word '' potassium'' is derived from ''potash''. Potash is produced worldwide in amounts exceeding 90 million s (40 million tonnes [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fulgurite
Fulgurites (), commonly known as "fossilized lightning", are natural tubes, clumps, or masses of sintered, vitrified, and/or fused soil, sand, rock, organic debris and other sediments that sometimes form when lightning discharges into ground. When composed of silica, fulgurites are classified as a variety of the mineraloid lechatelierite. When ordinary negative polarity cloud-ground lightning discharges into a grounding substrate, greater than 100 million volts (100 MV) of potential difference may be bridged. Such current may propagate into silica-rich quartzose sand, mixed soil, clay, or other sediments, rapidly vaporizing and melting resistant materials within such a common dissipation regime. This results in the formation of generally hollow and/or vesicular, branching assemblages of glassy tubes, crusts, and clumped masses. Fulgurites have no fixed composition because their chemical composition is determined by the physical and chemical properties of whatever material is be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impactite
Impactite is rock created or modified by one or more impacts of a meteorite. Impactites are considered metamorphic rock, because their source materials were modified by the heat and pressure of the impact. On Earth, impactites consist primarily of modified terrestrial material, sometimes with pieces of the original meteorite. Creation When a large meteorite hits a planet, it can radically deform the rocks and regolith that it hits. The heat, pressure, and shock of the impact changes these materials into impactite. Only very massive impacts generate the heat and pressure needed to transform a rock, so impactites are created rarely. Characteristics Impactite includes shock-metamorphosed target rocks, melts ( suevites) and mixtures of the two, as well as sedimentary rocks with significant impact-derived components (shocked mineral grains, tektites, anomalous geochemical signatures, etc.). In June 2015, NASA reported that impact glass has been detected on the planet Mars. Such ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tektite
Tektites (from grc, τηκτός , meaning 'molten') are gravel-sized bodies composed of black, green, brown or grey natural glass formed from terrestrial debris ejected during meteorite impacts. The term was coined by Austrian geologist Franz Eduard Suess (1867–1941), son of Eduard Suess. They generally range in size from millimetres to centimetres. Millimetre-scale tektites are known as microtektites.French, B. M. (1998) ''Traces of Catastrophe: A Handbook of Shock-Metamorphic Effects in Terrestrial Meteorite Impact Structures.'' LPI Contribution No. 954. Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas. 120 pp.McCall, G. J. H. (2001) ''Tektites in the Geological Record: Showers of Glass from the Sky.'' The Geological Society Publishing House, Bath, United Kingdom. 256 pp. Montanari, A., and C. Koeberl (2000) ''Impact Stratigraphy. The Italian Record.'' Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences Series no. 93. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York. 364 pp. Tektites are characterized by: # ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moldavite
Moldavite ( cs, vltavín) is a forest green, olive green or blue greenish vitreous silica projectile glass formed by a meteorite impact in southern Germany (Nördlinger Ries Crater) that occurred about 15 million years ago. It is a type of tektite. Early studies Moldavite was introduced to the scientific public for the first time in 1786 as "chrysolites" from Týn nad Vltavou in a lecture by Josef Mayer of Prague University, read at a meeting of the Bohemian Scientific Society (Mayer 1788). Zippe (1836) first used the term "moldavite", derived from the Moldau (Vltava) river in Bohemia (the Czech Republic), from where the first described pieces came. Origin In 1900, Franz Eduard Suess pointed out that the gravel-size moldavites exhibited curious pittings and wrinkles on the surface, which could not be due to the action of water, but resembled the characteristic markings on many meteorites. He attributed the material to a cosmic origin and regarded moldavites as a special type o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frit
A frit is a ceramic composition that has been fused, quenched, and granulated. Frits form an important part of the batches used in compounding enamels and ceramic glazes; the purpose of this pre-fusion is to render any soluble and/or toxic components insoluble by causing them to combine with silica and other added oxides.''Dictionary of Ceramics'' (3rd Edition) Edited by Dodd, A. Murfin, D. Institute of Materials. 1994. However, not all glass that is fused and quenched in water is frit, as this method of cooling down very hot glass is also widely used in glass manufacture. According to the ''OED'', the origin of the word "frit" dates back to 1662 and is "a calcinated mixture of sand and fluxes ready to be melted in a crucible to make glass". Nowadays, the unheated raw materials of glass making are more commonly called "glass batch". In antiquity, frit could be crushed to make pigments or shaped to create objects. It may also have served as an intermediate material in the manufac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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