Definition of Tektite

The word tektite comes from the Greek "tektos," meaning "molten" or "melted." This word is the name for a type of rock made mostly of glass, found only in a few places in the world.

Mineral Makeup

Tektites are made up of 65 percent to 90 percent glass, and may contain impurities such as iron and magnesium.

Origins

Two theories on how tektites formed are that they are meteors, or that they are terrestrial rocks that were vaporized by a meteor and then cooled quickly.The second theory is more commonly accepted.

Features

Tektites are often pitted on the outside, brown to green, and have little water content. Their size ranges from a few millimeters up to 8 inches in length.

The most common tektite shapes are balls, disks, raindrops and dumbbells.

Considerations

There are less common tektite shapes, which include ablated shapes and Muong Nong shapes.

Ablated tektites were sent into the atmosphere when a meteor hit the earth. Upon re-entry, their outer coating melted, and in this process the tektite formed a flange.

Muon Nong tektites are layers of tektite glass that can reach large sizes.

Location

The places tektites have been found have no geological relationship. They can be found in Georgia, Texas, Martha's Vineyard (Massachusetts), the Czech Republic, Mauritania, Cuba, Ivory Coast, Irgiz, Australia, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Tasmania and the Libyan Desert.

References

• The Free Dictionary, Dictionary/Thesaurus: Tektites
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Tektite (geology)
• Meteorites from Earth:The Tale of TektitesBy Richard Jakiel

Resources

• Tektite InformationSolving The Tektite Puzzle
• Tektites