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Constraints on iron silicide formation from a fulgurite from Southwick, Massachusetts, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2025

Joshua Abbatiello Open the ORCID record for Joshua Abbatiello [Opens in a new window] ,
Luca Bindi Open the ORCID record for Luca Bindi [Opens in a new window]  and
Matthew A. Pasek Open the ORCID record for Matthew A. Pasek [Opens in a new window]
Joshua Abbatiello
Affiliation:
School of Geosciences, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA
Luca Bindi
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Firenze, Firenze, Italy;
Matthew A. Pasek*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, USA
*
Corresponding author: Matthew Pasek; Email: pasekm@rpi.edu
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Abstract

Fulgurites are natural glasses that form when lightning strikes sand, soil, or rock and fuses the individual grains together to generate what is usually a tubular structure that follows the path of the strike. During this process, localised reducing conditions are conducive to forming rare minerals including iron silicides. This paper examines a fulgurite formed in Southwick, Massachusetts, USA, which displays an iron silicide that has a clearly defined reaction rim. The reaction rim demonstrates the production of a more silicon-rich rind consisting of Fe5Si3 on a core of Fe2Si, and the most likely route to forming this material is by reaction of silicon gas with Fe2Si at high temperature (>1000°C), with a reaction timescale of about one second. This reaction suggests the high temperature, reducing conditions of a lightning strike favour reactions of condensed matter (e.g. liquid or solid iron minerals) with gas that occurs rapidly during the lightning strike. The conditions necessary to form these minerals suggest that the fulgurite became more reducing over time, as more Si entered the solid phase, perhaps as oxygen left the system, either as CO2 or from the breakdown of SiO2 gas.

Keywords

fulguritessilicidesreduced mineralsreduction

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Type
Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , First View , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Mineralogical Society of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

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Footnotes

Associate Editor: Koichi Momma

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