Fulgurite creation

Wikipedia: Fulgurites (from the Latin fulgur meaning thunderbolt) are natural hollow carrot-shaped glass tubes formed in quartzose sand or soil by lightning strikes.

I used a high voltage high current power supply to make artificial fulgurites.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• fulgerite
• sand
• highvoltage

[QUlRK]

I would like to recreate this experiment in a lab setting, but I want to do it safely, and with the same effect as seen here. Can you give me any help in doing this? It seems there is just a metal bowl full of wet sand and a high power high voltage current attached to the rim of the bowl. Does the gauge of the wire make a difference? how much voltage was used for your fulgurite? this looks amazing

[nik282000]

The bowl was connected to ground and the 0volt side of the power supply to lessen the chance of a shock. The power supply was ~2kV at ~900mA. The sand should not be very wet, only damp and fine grains are better then large ones.

[djspaceport]

How did you get such branched ones? I just tried and I get a "stick"

[nik282000]

If you use sand that is just a little bit damp it tends to branch out.

[nik282000]

The glass inside is black/green but it is not thick and continuous so it cant be cleaned up.

[nik282000]

No, the glass has lots of impurities and is white or gray.

[usernameABCDXYZ]

@QUlRK He used a microwave oven transformer, or at least it seems like that.

[jmartis2]

Cool. I wonder how your MOTs survive (they are in series right?) as well as the caps, one for two MOTs usually explodes!

[yuandrew]

Are those microwave oven transformers over on the right side you're using for the power supply ?

[kuurupt]

can you clean it up???like get clear glass??