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Met Name

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Thin Sections

5.6 kg.   Impactite

Found in the area of the red marker below.



MikeG writes:

This is a large example of Libyan Desert Glass. It weighs 5600 grams or approx. 12 pounds. It is about the size of a football. It is an opaque piece with regions of dark schlieren. This is the largest piece I have seen in almost 10 years of dealing with this type of material.

You can see this piece in Anne Black's room (Hotel City Center, room 322) at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.

From Wikipedia:

The origin of Desert glass is uncertain. Meteoritic origins have long been considered possible, and recent research links the glass to impact features, such as zircon-breakdown, vaporized quartz and meteoritic metals, and to an impact crater. Some geologists associate the glass with radiative melting from meteoric large aerial bursts, making it analogous to trinitite created from sand exposed to the thermal radiation of a nuclear explosion. Libyan Desert glass has been dated as having formed about 26 million years ago. It was knapped and used to make tools during the Pleistocene.

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