Libyan glass Impattite - Height: 72 mm - Width: 50 mm - 103 g

The deposit of this glass is located in one of the inaccessible areas of the Saharan desert: in the Great Sand Sea, a desert region between Libya and Egypt.

Its formation is theorized to have occurred about 29.5 million years ago, caused by the explosion in the atmosphere (at an estimated altitude of 10,000 m) of an asteroid or comet with a diameter between 50 and 100 meters.

The impact would have compressed and heated the underlying air strata. The heat transferred to the desert sand would have caused it to boil at a temperature above 1800°C. In this way, a sheet of glass covering an area of 6,500 km2 formed, which, over the years, fragmented into the samples that we collect and preserve today.