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The response of zircon to the extreme pressures and temperatures of a lightning strike
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Department of Geology.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8683-3860
School of Geosciences, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA.
2021 (English)In: Scientific Reports, E-ISSN 2045-2322, Vol. 11, article id 1560Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Hypervelocity impacts can produce features in zircon that are not normally produced by endogenic processes. However, lightning can also induce extreme pressure–temperature excursions, and itsefect on zircon has not been studied. With the aim to recognise features that form in response to extreme pressure–temperature excursions but are not unique to hypervelocity impacts, we imaged and undertook microstructural characterization of zircon in a fulgurite (a tubular body of glass andfused clasts that formed in response to a lightning strike). We document zircon with granular ZrO2 and rims of vermicular ZrO2, features which vary in abundance with increasing distance from the fulgurite’s central void. This indicates that these features formed in response to the lightning strike. Zircon dissociation to ZrO2 and SiO2 is a high-temperature, relatively low-pressure phenomenon, consistent with previous suggestions that lightning strikes involve extreme temperatures as well as pressures greater than those usually generated in Earth’s crust but rarely > 10 GPa. The rims of monoclinic ZrO2 record crystallographic evidence for precursor cubic ZrO2, demonstrating that cubic ZrO2 is not unique to hypervelocity impacts. Given the likelihood that this fulgurite experienced pressures of, at most, a few GPa, evidence for cubic ZrO2 indicates peak temperatures > 2000 °C.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. Vol. 11, article id 1560
National Category
Geology Geochemistry Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:nrm:diva-4180DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-81043-8OAI: oai:DiVA.org:nrm-4180DiVA, id: diva2:1524825
Funder
EU, Horizon 2020, 792030Available from: 2021-02-02 Created: 2021-02-02 Last updated: 2022-09-15Bibliographically approved

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Publisher's full texthttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81043-8

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