How would humans live in a world made primarily of glass?

Setup: Earth developed in an alternate universe with small oceans and little water. A little before animals first left the oceans and began to walk on land, when all of Earth's land was barren sand, the Earth went through a period of relentless lightning storms, which turned all the land to glass that extended a couple kilometers into the earth's crust.

Eventually, life left the oceans and crawled onto the glass land. How would the animals develop differently? What would flora and fauna be like in a world that was made of glass? Would these continents of glass even last, or would they disintegrate and erode back into sand because of wind and rain?

I'm not going to ask if humans would ever evolve, because that's my one requirement for this world: the evolution of animals must lead to humans, exactly (at least physically, not necessarily psychologically or socially) like the humans we have on earth now. But how would these humans differ psychologically and socially from the humans on earth now? How would they survive? Would they carve shelters into the glass, or not use shelters? One of the ideas I had was that they would primarily get around with glass skates (ice skates, but on glass), but would that even be possible with standard materials?

In short, what would the flora and fauna of a world where all land was entirely glass be like, and how would humans live and behave in this glass world?

posted almost 5 years ago

Rory M. Tims‭

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