Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE.

ABSTRACT: Glass forms when a liquid is fast cooled preventing crystallization, across a reversible process known as the glass transition. Organic tissues are commonly preserved as glass by processes of vitrification at very low temperatures, known as cryopreservation, and can return to their original soft state when heated back to ambient temperature. It would therefore be impossible to find organic glass embedded in volcanic deposits that have reached several hundred of Celsius degrees. Here we demonstrate that material with glassy appearance found within the skull of a seemingly male human body entombed within the hot pyroclastic flow deposits of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption formed by a unique process of vitrification of his brain at very high temperature, and is the only such occurrence on Earth.

SUBMITTER: Giordano G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11868551 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature