It is not often that a handful of pale yellow fragments lying quietly in desert sand end up pulling scientists back into questions about ancient catastrophe and planetary violence. Libyan Desert Glass has been sitting in museum drawers and scattered across remote stretches of North Africa for decades, sometimes even cut into jewellery that once belonged to ancient Egyptian elites. The latest examination of a microscopic mineral trapped inside one piece has added another layer of discomfort to an already unsettled picture. The evidence does not point in a single direction. It hints instead at conditions so extreme that familiar geological processes start to look inadequate, even strained.
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