Scientists in Brazil, China and Italy have developed a model to map out how meteor impacts or nuclear blasts change minerals found on earth, Science Daily reports.

The website says the results of a joint study of the question by researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Italy were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The report says the researchers used computer simulation to study coesite, a sort of high-density glass found in a crater made by the impact of a comet or asteroid that hit what is now Mexico, and which is thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

One purpose of the study was to find out how to make glass with thermal conductivity that would be of use in technological innovation, Science Daily says.