[meteorite-list] Heating moldavites and tektite look-alikes

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Jul 21 15:57:10 2005
Message-ID: <DIIE.0000002F00003AFA_at_paulinet.de>

AL wrote:

"Someone mentioned one time of putting tektites in a microwave oven for
a bit (on high) to try to determine if it is an Earth based specimen or
a possible tektite ... "


Hello AL, Doug, Norm, and List,

Back in the year 2000, Jim Kriegh experimented with Apache tears and those
tektite look-alikes from Arizona that I chose to simply call Arizonaites
(there are 18 of these in my collection which I got from Jim and Twink).
Here is what Jim wrote:

" ... Thought there is something you should know about the Arizona 'whatevers'.
I had a chemist friend (he also has studied geology) heat one of them in an oven
along with an Apache tear. The Apache tear foamed as the water started coming out
of it. The Arizonaite showed no signs of water. He even raised the temperature
another 500 degrees F above what the Apache tear started foaming and all the
Arizonaite did was glow red. After cooling it looked the same as before. I am going
to test some more to see if any moisture shows up. Dr. Kring decided to look at some
after I told him about no moisture in them but he said he still thinks they must be
volcanic in source."

This should also be applicable to "real", "genuine" tektites and
moldavites, and those man-made glasses we are talking about.

but, please, be careful in case anyone should try (safety goggles, etc.!)


Best wishes,

Bernd
Received on Thu 21 Jul 2005 03:57:00 PM PDT