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I have a lot of material samples, like foams made out of aluminum, and a piece of glass, called fulgurite, that’s made from lightning hitting sand.

Quasicrystals might also form in other materials that were generated in violent conditions, such as fulgurite, the material made when lightning strikes rock, sand or other sediments.

The researchers examined an unusually large and pristine fulgurite sample formed when lightning struck the backyard of a home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, outside Chicago.

When a lightning bolt strikes a mountaintop, it can melt rocks in a flash, leaving a narrow glassy scar called a fulgurite.

When exposed to the elements, glasses like fulgurite slowly and steadily absorb moisture, “sort of like a sponge,” says Jonathan Castro, a volcanologist at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.