Lightning initiation

Fig. 6.1. Mechanism of lightning initiation (a) stepped leader formation (b) initiation of an ascending leader (c) return stroke...

Combustion is the most common reaction of alkanes. Lightning initiated this fire in a tank containing 3 million gallons of gasoline at the Shell Oil storage facility in Woodbridge, NJ (June 11, 1996). 

There are a wide variety of initial sources of NOs for the ice sheets, including bacterial emissions, biomass burning, photochemical reactions, and lightning. These are generally low-mid-latitude continental sources. This very complicated mixed source renders interpretations of ice-core NOJ" concentrations difficult. A further complication results from possible limitations on delivery of NOT to ice-core sites by atmospheric circulation, due to the large distance from... 

Know how such reactions might be initiated (e.g., heat, contamination, inadvertent mixing, impact, friction, electrical short, lightning). 

A plasma is an appreciably ionized gas(about 1% or more) having no net charge, and may have a wide range of densities. Plasmas are of particular interest because of the possibility of initiating nuclear fusion in them, but they also appear in such phenomena as a neon sign, a lightning stroke, the ionosphere about the earth, shock waves, and the compressed layer of hot gas about an object entering the earth s atmosphere They appear in flames and detonation waves. It seems well established that free radicals and ions are present at well over equilibrium concentrations in flames (Ref 1). The ions appear to be produced not by thermal processes but by chemical factors which cause abnormal electronic excitation... 

Plasmas are of particular interest now because of the possibility of initiating nuclear fusion in them but they also appear in phenomena ranging from those found in a neon sign, a lightning stroke, the ionosphere about the earth, shock waves, and the compressed layer of hot gas around an astronaut s capsule as he comes back thru the earth s atmosphere ... 

It appears that a recognizable pyrolytic PAH fingerprint can survive over geological time-scales. Wild fires, primarily initiated by lightning strikes, are the most likely source of these PAHs in ancient sediments. Such fires have probably been a feature of terrestrial ecosystems from at least the Late Devonian (see Section 1.4.2), as suggested by the occurrence in sediments of fusinites and semifusinites (see Section 4.3.1b), the proposed products of vegetation fires (Chaloner 1989). Observed PAH distributions in ancient sediments are often like those seen in Recent sediments and are consistent with... 

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