Mount Vesuvius turned this ancient brain into glass. Here’s how

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius successful A.D. 79 is possibly astir celebrated for entombing nan Roman metropolis of Pompeii. But successful adjacent Herculaneum, besides buried successful nan eruption, nan preserved skeleton of a young man lying successful furniture contained a astonishing find: solid remnants of his brain.

When researchers studied nan shiny samples, they saw what appeared to beryllium nervus cells. A caller study now uncovers much specifications into how nan solid whitethorn person formed, nan squad reports February 27 successful Scientific Reports.

Glass forms erstwhile a liquid — usually molten soil — is quickly cooled. That’s really manufacturers make windows and cups. The process tin besides hap naturally, for illustration erstwhile lighting strikes a sandy desert, forming lumps of glass called fulgurites. Before nan young Roman’s encephalon remnants were discovered, however, glassy biologic soft tissues had not been recovered successful nature, nan researchers say.

“When we realized that location was really a glassy brain, nan technological mobility was: really is it possible?” says Guido Giordano, a geologist and volcanologist astatine Roma Tre University.

Giordano and colleagues utilized a method called differential scanning calorimetry, which progressive heating nan already glassy encephalon shards, to find nan somesthesia astatine which nan solid had formed. The shards underwent structural changes astatine temperatures complete 510° Celsius (950° Fahrenheit), suggesting that’s nan somesthesia nan encephalon insubstantial deed primitively to move to glass.

The researchers reasoned that nan swift onslaught of basking volcanic ash, stone and state that entombed Herculaneum could not person been responsible for turning nan encephalon chunks to glass. Similar pyroclastic flows person been recovered to max retired astatine 465° C and would not person cooled accelerated capable to move encephalon to glass. Instead, a overmuch hotter ash unreality astir apt deed nan young man and dissipated fast, allowing for nan basal cooling. Only later were nan remains buried successful nan heavy volcanic debris, nan squad says.

So why didn’t nan young man’s encephalon wholly disintegrate successful nan utmost heat? His skull whitethorn person had thing to do pinch it, nan researchers suggest. The bones whitethorn person protected against nonstop interaction pinch nan ash cloud.