[meteorite-list] Fw: Tektites & Soil

From: Darryl S. Futrell <futrelds_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:46:23 2004
Message-ID: <01e901c0dbd6$c1548540$d14d173f_at_pavilion>

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorites_at_space.com <meteorites@space.com>
To: futrelds_at_gte.net <futrelds@gte.net>
Cc: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
<meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sunday, April 29, 2001 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Tektites & Soil





Awhile back, Steve Schoner posted a bunch of statements. There are a few
that I haven't discussed recently. They are:

"Lack of tektite samples from the Apollo missions...."


Not so! Apollo 14 soil samples contain plenty of sub-mm glass particles
that have been shown to be a mix of lunar pyroclastics and impact glasses.
This is briefly mentioned in T. S. Culler et al., 2000, Science 287,
1785-1788. Billy Glass (1976, Earth and Planet. Sci. Letters 33, studied 93
of these glass particles that all had a silica content greater than 60 %.
He found 30 of these, with silica contents between 72 and 78% silica, that
appear to him to be the products of lunar acidic volcanism. John A. O'Keefe
(1994, Meteoritics) claims that some of these are in the tektite family. As
such, they should qualify as microtektites and chips of microtektites.
Microtektites (a form of lunar pyroclastics) are the key to all tektite
glasses (my 1999 Rock and Gem article). If one could find the lunar vent
or conduit for the glasses mentioned by O'Keefe, they would have a tektite
glass producing site. Such glasses must exist, due to gardening, in all
Apollo soil samples, if people would look for them. Then, there is Apollo
rock 12013, with the composition of certain Javanite tektites. Both Dean
Chapman and J. A. O'Keefe had a lot to say about the significance of this
rock. It's a fine grained volcanic rock, I would think like a rhyolite. If
it had cooled faster, it could have been glass, but it didn't, and isn't.
If its source could be located, perhaps some of the extruded material did
cool faster. Then you would have lunar volcanic glasses with the overall
composition of certain javanites.



"Come on... Controversy is the field upon which truth grows."

I believe that may be the case for certain other fields of science, but when
it comes to tektites, the is absoluitely not the case! I think it's now
been about two years since my "tektite debate history" thing was posted.
There have been a lot of new members since then, and I know some of them
would be interested. Besides, parts have been rewritten. TK.

"The sad fact is that some refuse to submit to truth when it becomes
apparent."

Hey, MOST of them refuse to submit to truth when it becomes apparent! My
papers and abstracts illustrating the volcanic origin of layered tektites
are all illustrated! (With the exception of the 2000 one in METEORITE!)
Look at the illustrations and judge for yourself! Or, better yet, come see
the actual specimens for yourself, and THEN decide! In my opinion, relying
only on premature geochemical constraints for lunar chemistries is poor
science. Petrology should come first!


Darryl
Received on Sun 13 May 2001 02:00:22 PM PDT