The correlation between Si-29 chemical shifts and Si-O-Si bond angles in Si
O2 is determined within density-functional theory for the full range of ang
les present in vitreous silica. This relation closely reproduces measured s
hifts of crystalline polymorphs. The knowledge of the correlation allows us
to reliably extract from the experimental NMR spectrum the mean (151 degre
es) and the standard deviation (11 degrees) of the Si-O-Si angular distribu
tion of vitreous silica. In particular, we show that the Mozzi-Warren Si-O-
Si angular distribution is not consistent with the NMR data. This analysis
illustrates the potential of our approach for structural determinations of
silicate glasses.