The body of a young man was discovered in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The surprise: part of his brain had turned to glass, an extremely rare natural phenomenon that is still a mystery to scientists.
Gowan believes that this glass was formed by a type of vitrification process, that is, the melting of organic tissue at an extreme temperature and then rapidly cooling it to form glass. For this to happen correctly, the temperature would have to reach 510° Celsius or more and it would take a very long time to cool.
The researchers speculate that the outer ash cloud of the explosion, which entered the city in the previous phase, was extremely hot and rapidly expanding at that time and then cooled rapidly to form such glass. But the matter is not so simple. First, the temperature of the pyroclastic flows that are generally recorded was usually not higher than 465° Celsius, which is not enough for glass transformation. So the special conditions of the cloud are being discussed.
Second, the young man's skull and spine may have acted as a "shield" at the time, allowing direct heat to help preserve the brain as glass rather than completely destroying it. When analyzing the glacial remains, scientists found the presence of neuron-like structures, proteins, and other brain-related molecules, which make the glass layer "organic."
This phenomenon is not only interesting from an archaeological perspective, but also helps us understand how living material can behave in extreme environments. However, many questions remain, such as how rare this process is, how often it occurs, and why this one was found in the first place, which are the subject of future research.
Source: Smithsonian / Scientific Reports / Nature / Science News / Reuters