The tallest dunes in North America sit under a monsoon that fires on them all summer, and the sand keeps the record. A bolt hitting the dunefield reaches somewhere near 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the surface of the sun, and vaporises a channel straight down through the sand while fusing the grains around it into a dark glass tube. What is left is a cast of the lightning itself, branching downward the way the current spread. The park geologist notes they turn up after big wind events, when the dunes move and expose tubes that were buried. LOOK, DO NOT COLLECT: this is a National Park and the Park Service asks plainly that you study a fulgurite and leave it in the sand for the next person. Park resources are protected by law.
Fulgurite (lightning glass)
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
