Tektite Of The Month

Tektites – one of the most enigmatic things on Earth… by Roman Davidov from the April 2005 Issue. Tektites – one of the most enigmatic things on Earth. From a few titles, having came to us through the deep antiquity: The black stones of The God Of Thunder, fire arrows, moon or solar stones, follows the sacred beliefs of our

by Roman Davidov (revisited from the June 2003 issue of Meteorite Times) Zhamanshin. This word translated from Kazakh language like “bad soil” or “land without anything growing on it”. Firstly, peculiarity of this place noticed in 1936 by V.Vahrameev and later in 1941 by A.Yanshin. This two scientists noticed the presence of Paleozoic rocks among the field of cainosoic rocks.

by Alain Carion The tektites of Ivory Coast are without a doubt the rarest of the tektites in any collections. They have been found while searching for gold, particularly in gold placers, but local shamans and tribal chiefs usually kept them and prized them as amulets with great powers. They are sometimes called “Ivoirites”; they are black, opaque, often round

This amazing specimen is considered one of the largest specimens outside of a museum and the second or third largest known. This impact glass was the product of a meteorite or comet impact 816,000 years ago forming Darwin Crater located south of Queenstown in West Coast, Tasmania.

Please see Norm’s writeup on this amazing folded Lei gong mo tektite in this month’s Norm’s Tektite Teasers

Stretched Teardrop This Indochinite teardrop weighs 15.7g and measures 25 x 50 mm.  The bottom 1/3 on one side broke away and almost slid off, stretching the still-soft interior. Some might not consider this a true “stretch” tektite since there is only relatively minor angular distortion but this is far from a simple skin split. I have had a couple

Darwin glass is an impactite caused by a meteorite impact. This natural glass is found south of Queenstown in West Coast, Tasmania.               All Photos © Copyright by Daniel Sutherland  

A collapsed Lei Gong Mo bubble fragment, Guangdong Province, China (from the author’s private collection)     This is a popped bubble where a flap of the skin folded in on itself while still sufficiently hot and plastic to fuse along the inner surface. Both surfaces have seen the same duration of terrestrial etching, but only the original exterior is

Below are some very nice Philippinites. In the pictures you can see three Philippinites that resemble Australite cores.