[meteorite-list] Composition of Tektites

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:37:18 -0500
Message-ID: <6556AFE4DC6D4182A29CA4ED99EA9026_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Hi, Walter, List

The chief proponent of tektites as ejecta from
lunar volcanoes was John O'Keefe (d. 2000).
Of course Nininger thought of the idea, too,
but neither of them was the first.

The chief expert on lunar glass and tektite analysis
is B. P. Glass, yes, his name is BILLY GLASS. This
makes trying to Google up articles about lunar glasses
by Glass very difficult, but he has a trunkful of papers
on lunar glasses:
http://www.geology.udel.edu/glass/bghistory.html

I think this is the one you may be talking about:
"Glass, B. P. (1986) Lunar sample 14425: Not a lunar
tektite, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 50, 111-113."

In 1985, O'Keefe and Glass published a paper saying
the biggest glass bead from the Moon (eight mm!) was
a high-magnesium tektite. One year later, in 1986, they
took it all back. Experimental error. Here's the abstract:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/pdf_extract/229/4720/1410

Still, lunar volcanism, IF it exists, still leaves us with
the problem that we don't know what lunar magma
would be like, if it exists. How would you know anything
was a product of lunar volcanism if you didn't know
what lunar volcanic product was?

There is no such thing as a single "tektite" composition.
There are Hi-Si, Lo-Si, Hi-Mg, Hi-Na, Lo-Na... and on
and on. The one sure thing is H2O -- they ain't got any.

I tried posting this to the List earlier but it doesn't
seem to have gone through. For a lot of information on
tektites, O'Keefe's 1976 is still quite a good read.

The first five chapters of John O'Keefe's 1976 book,
"Tektites and Their Origin," long out-of-print (Amazon
$200) had been posted for many years on a website
("originoftektikes.com") but is now a dead link.

Those first five chapters of O'Keefe's "Tektites and Their
Origin" is now available for download as a book in PDF
format at:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2y55kt

That link will only be good for a limited time before it
expires, so don't save it as a reference -- use it. Just
click on the orange download button near the bottom
of the page.

Regards,


Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Branch" <waltbranch at bellsouth.net>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2010 10:14 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Composition of Tektites


> Hello Everyone,
>
> I thought I had a paper somewhere in my files but I can't locate it.
>
> There is an old theory, largely discredited I believe, which states
> that tektites originate from lunar volcanoes. The glassy beads found
> in the lunar regolith and brought back by the Apollo astronauts are of
> volcanic origin.
>
> Can some inform me as to the results of a comparative analysis between
> tektites and the those glassy beads?
>
> I know I have reprints somewhere but I can't find them.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Walter Branch
>
>
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Received on Sun 29 Aug 2010 12:37:18 AM PDT