The Pica glass or Atacama desert glass are a collection of impact glass samples only found along a broad 75.6 kilometer stretch of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, near the town of Pica. Pica glass is notably light weight containing many folds, twist and flow lines. [1] They can be up to 50 centimeters across. [2]
Theses likely originated when a comet entered Earths atmosphere and exploded over the Atacama desert on the Late Pleistocene epoch somewhere between 12,000-14,000 years ago. This explosion occurred soon after the arrival of people in South America so it was likely witnessed by some early hunter-gatherers in the area. [1] [2]