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The following item appeared in the New York Herald Tribune on February 16, 1947 (and was repeated by Ivan T. Sanderson in the January 1970 issue of his magazine, Pursuit):

When the first atomic bomb exploded in New Mexico, the desert sand turned to fused green glass. This fact, according to the magazine Free World, has given certain archaeologists a turn. They have been digging in the ancient Euphrates Valley and have uncovered a layer of agrarian culture 8,000 years old, and a layer of herdsman culture much older, and a still older caveman culture. Recently, they reached another layer.of fused green glass.

It is well known that atomic detonations on or above a sandy desert will melt the silicon in the sand and turn the surface of the Earth into a sheet of glass. But if sheets of ancient desert glass can be found in various parts of the world, does it mean that atomic wars were fought in the ancient past or, at the very least, that atomic testing occurred in the dim ages of history?

This is a startling theory, but one that is not lacking in evidence, as such ancient sheets of desert glass are a geological fact. Lightning strikes can sometimes fuse sand, meteorologists contend, but this is always in a distinctive root-like pattern. These strange geological oddities are called fulgurites and manifest as branched tubular forms rather than as flat sheets of fused sand. Therefore, lightning is largely ruled out as the cause of such finds by geologists, who prefer to hold onto the theory of a meteor or comet strike as the cause. The problem with this theory is that there is usually no crater associated with these anomalous sheets of glass.

Libyan Desert Glass is a natural glass composed of nearly pure silica (98 wt %). The formation of this glass, because of its unusual composition has for long been considered as mysterious. Chemical analyses show that the glass is locally enriched in meteoritic elements, with typical chondritic proportions. The only explanation for these observations is that Libyan Desert Glass results from a meteorite impact on a silica-rich target.

Come now Marduk: you should know full well by now that posting links to internet websites that support your conjectures is simply not allowed. Showing that every other expert on the subject agrees with you, or that your idea is support by masses and masses of empirical evidence is simply cheating and means you're incapable of thinking for yourself!

What you have to do is refer people to a long out of print book from the 19th or early 20th century, preferably by some bloke no one has heard of. Note: it must be one which takes no account of modern scientific theories all of which are complete bunkum (plate tectonics? pollen studies? don't make me laugh ....!!!! ). This shows that you have done proper research and are undoubtably right about absolutely everything.

folks, let's not ridicule

Originally posted by Marduk
but okay then i see your 1947 article and raise you this contemporary analysis of the same desert glass
www.saharamet.com...

Libyan Desert Glass is a natural glass composed of nearly pure silica (98 wt %). The formation of this glass, because of its unusual composition has for long been considered as mysterious. Chemical analyses show that the glass is locally enriched in meteoritic elements, with typical chondritic proportions. The only explanation for these observations is that Libyan Desert Glass results from a meteorite impact on a silica-rich target.

This comes with an available booklet from a meeting of qualified experts who all analysed this desert glass
www.df.unibo.it...
dit on 20-12-2006 by Marduk]

Originally posted by mikesingh

So what does one make of this?

Here..

According to a news item in this week's issue of Science magazine, planetary scientist Farouk El-Baz has just discovered "the largest crater yet found in the Sahara," and is suggesting that it has the right characteristics to answer a long-standing mystery. Since 1932, scientists have been picking up yellow-green glass in a 60-by-100-kilometer (35-by-60-mile) area of the desert of southern Egypt near the Libyan border. Study of the glass has revealed the unmistakable isotopic signature of an asteroid impact, but the source crater has never been found -- until now.