Tektite, Black (Australasian Meteorite Impact Approx. .78 Million Yrs Ago)

Description

"New" black tektite,
specifically an
Australasian Indochinite tektite
.
These tektites were formed during a meteorite strike approximately .78 million years ago in the region of the Indonesian Peninsula.
This auction is for one tektite.
In the pictures, a quarter, a one inch caliper measurement, and an electronic scale give one an idea of the scale of the tektites being offered. These tektites measure from .75" to 1" in diameter, and their mass measures from 8 grams to 18 grams, with an average mass of 12 grams each for those in this group. The close-ups exhibit the surface of the tektites (note that the individual tektite you receive may not be the exact same tektites used in the close-up pictures, but yours will be virtually the same).
From the Wikipedia article about tektites-
Tektites (from Ancient Greek: τηκτός tēktós, meaning 'molten') are gravel-sized bodies composed of black, green, brown or grey natural glass formed from terrestrial debris ejected during meteorite impacts. The term was coined by Austrian geologist Franz Eduard Suess (1867–1941), son of Eduard Suess. They generally range in size from millimetres to centimetres. Millimetre-scale tektites are known as microtektites.
Origins
Terrestrial source theory.
The overwhelming consensus of Earth and planetary scientists is that tektites consist of terrestrial debris that was ejected during the formation of an impact crater. During the extreme conditions created by a hypervelocity meteorite impact, near-surface terrestrial sediments and rocks were either melted, vaporized, or some combination of these, and ejected from an impact crater. After ejection from the impact crater, the material formed millimeter- to centimeter-sized bodies of molten material, which as they re-entered the atmosphere, rapidly cooled to form tektites that fell to Earth to create a layer of distal ejecta hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from the impact site.
The terrestrial source for tektites is supported by well-documented evidence. The chemical and isotopic composition of tektites indicates that they are derived from the melting of silica-rich crustal and sedimentary rocks, which are not found on the Moon. In addition, some tektites contain relict mineral inclusions (quartz, zircon, rutile, chromite, and monazite) that are characteristic of terrestrial sediments and crustal and sedimentary source rocks. Also, three of the four tektite strewnfields have been linked by their age and chemical and isotopic composition to known impact craters. A number of different geochemical studies of tektites from the Australasian strewnfield concluded that these tektites consist of melted Jurassic sediments, or sedimentary rocks that were weathered and deposited about 167 Mya. Their geochemistry suggests that the source of Australasian tektites is a single sedimentary formation with a narrow range of stratigraphic ages close to 170 Mya, more or less. This effectively refutes multiple impact hypotheses.
Although the formation and widespread distribution of tektites is widely accepted to require the intense (superheated) melting of near-surface sediments and rocks at the impact site and the following high-velocity ejection of this material from the impact crater, the exact processes involved remain poorly understood. One possible mechanism for the formation of tektites is by the jetting of highly shocked and superheated melt during the initial contact/compression stage of impact crater formation. Alternatively, various mechanisms involving the dispersal of shock-melted material by an expanding vapor plume, which is created by a hypervelocity impact, have been used to explain the formation of tektites. Any mechanism by which tektites are created must explain chemical data that suggest that parent material from which tektites were created came from near-surface rocks and sediments at an impact site. In addition, the scarcity of known strewn fields relative to the number of identified impact craters indicate that very special and rarely met circumstances are required for tektites to be created by a meteorite impact.