The odd one out, and the reason it is worth knowing the chemistry. White Sands is not quartz sand at all, it is gypsum, so the tubes lightning leaves here are not the glass you get in a silica dune. Gypsum fulgurites lack the glassy fusion crust entirely, which makes them fragile, pale and easy to walk past. The setting is otherwise ideal: a vast open dunefield with nothing to compete for a strike. LOOK, DO NOT COLLECT: this is a National Park. Photograph it and leave it, and note that the surrounding missile range means large parts of the area close without warning.
Gypsum fulgurite
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
