A deadly ash cloud preserved the man's brain as glass for thousands of years.

Under the lamp, I suddenly saw small glassy remains glittering in the volcanic ash that filled the skull," Petrone said.

A young man's brain turned into glass during Mount Vesuvius’ 79 AD eruption. Scientists now study how extreme heat preserved ...

They look like small pieces of obsidian, smooth and shiny ... are thought to be pieces of his brain—turned to glass. The discovery, reported in 2020, was exciting because a human brain had ...

“Obsidian glass, that is a volcanic glass, forms when lava is very quickly cooled, for example, where it enters into water,” Giordano added. However, the pyroclastic flows, composed of fast ...

Along with volcanic ash, his brain and spinal cord ... The shards, or clasts, have a glassy luster, making them look a lot like obsidian, a glass formed from lava when it cools very quickly.

(CNN) — Glass rarely forms naturally from organic materials. However, in 2020, researchers discovered a black, glassy substance inside the skull of a person killed during the eruption of Italy ...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. In 2022, Obsidian Entertainment was the only first-party Xbox studio to ship a new game, Pentiment. And in 2025, the Microsoft-owned studio has ...

A glass-like substance found in the skull of a person who perished in the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius has helped archaeologists unravel the sequence of events that wiped out Pompeii and ...