Art, You asked how to tell the difference. One means is the probability of overlapping distribution is very low. To my knowledge, unless there had been trade activity amongst aboriginal Americans you should not find Apache tears and tektites in the same area. The closest discovered tektite occurrence is East Central Texas home of the bedisite variety. Not to say they don't exist more eastward but SE New Mexico is the most eastward occurrence of Apache tears I have seen. There was a rumor about a tektite find in Northern Mexico but I think that was discredited. An interesting side note is that georgiasites (central Georgia, USA) have been found worked into tools by aboriginal craftsmen while not a single bedisite has ever been found which had been worked --not bead, scraper, knife nor arrowhead etc. Obsidian was a mainstay of tool making for several tribes.
The differences are hard to describe and best obtained by experience. Familiarize yourself with images of tektites and impact glass. One great page is: <http://home1.gte.net/res04m7h/mystery.html> Most tears will of course be pebble shaped, usually smooth and are dark or look like superficially like a "peach fuzz" sheen. "Raw" tears may have concoidal dimples where stream tumbling breaks out a speck but are usually smooth already depending on the distance they have been transported. Both may be opaque to transparent. Some superficial differences are: Shape: Tektites are predominantly flat, elongated, may have jagged protrusions. Over all tends to be irregular and have very unequal axis( e.g. 2-4 times longer than wide or thick). Tears are smooth and roundish as thick as they are wide. Tends to have axies that are more equal (e.g. slightly oblong but the length is usually no more than 1.5� times the width) Unbroken Surface: Tektite: may appear: ropey, gritty, canaled, deeply gouged, twisted, flight marked, ample crater-like depressions, bubbly, no metallic sheen. can be dimpled like a golf ball. Internally, can have small bubbles. Obsidian: Tends to be already uniformly smooth and dark--looks like glass basically! Can be crazed under rough transport: as in having star/ray shaped fractures of gray or silver covering most of the surface or completely dark and uniformly smooth. This is ""BB" pellet against the window pane" effect-- actually a reversed concoidal fracture but there isn't any place for the fragment to go. Rarely has dimples. Never bubbly and very rarely it have bubbles within. When bubbles are found in volcanic glass they are usually the cavities left by mineral clusters which have been leached out near a weathered surface and aren't gas bubbles. Luster: Tektite is towards the greasy Obsidian- remains dull but glasslike as in the surface of an old style cola bottle which had been down the refill rack many times. Surface- If translucent at all, a tektite will usually have an olive to green to yellow tint to the basic gray or black color. Otherwise they do look a lot like tears do. Tektites in thin slabs can have banding like obsidian. However, the tektite banding will have a greenish tint while obsidian has a black, red, or gold tint. Of course there are exceptions to everything and the cut sections of Tibetan tektites I've seen don't seem to have the green cast. I have some australites that could be mistaken for tears on casually observation were it not for telltale flight sculpting marks. Many bedisites do have a shape closer to tears , but still have the jagged irregular appearance. An additional hobby of mine is natural glass and I've examined samples from many areas of the world including impact, tektite, atomic, and volcanic as well as for contrast slag glass and ancient man-made glass. I am fascinated by what is otherwise a mundane material. So common and basic to our existance we rarely give it a thought, little alone as much discussion as of late. I haven't seen a tumbled tektite but I'd like to know what it would come out as. Perhaps others have tumbled some and could discuss. There are some list members far more familiar with tektites than I and whose works are published. There are vast amounts of photos on the web, as well. and as I said in the beginning experience is the best way to tell if you have an item which needs closer study. Photos do speak a thousand worlds and I am at my quota. Regards, Elton thornysahuaro wrote: <snip> > If I'm out collecting Apache Tears and I should >pick up a Tektite, how would I know the difference? If I happened to put >that tektite into the tumbler with a batch of Apache Tears would there be >any obvious differences when polished? >Art Brasher > > ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
