MYSTERY OF TEKTITES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

MYSTERY OF TEKTITES

THEORIES AS TO ORIGIN In an article on " Tektites, the Problem of their Origin," Mr. T. HodgeSmith writes in the Australian Museum Magazine as follows: " Tektites! How few Australians have ever heard the word, let alone know what it implies, although here in Australia they occur by the thousand. They are peculiarly shaped little bits of glass, seldom measuring more than an inch or so in diameter, and found in certain large but restricted areas of the earth's surface. They look so harmless, so insignificant, and yet chemists, penologists, physicists and geologists all over the world have been requisitioned to explain their origin. " Even to-day, with all the resources of modern science brought to bear on the mystery, nobody has produced a solution that has definitely and finally satisfied the scientific world as a whole. Much has been written on the subject, anil many anU varied iiave been the hypotheses to account for their existence. Some have dismissed them as being artificial, others are satisfied that they are derived from volcanoes, many believe they are meteorites, while recently it has been suggested that they are deriyed from the fusion of rocks during a bombardment by largo meteorites.

" Owing to their restricted geographical distribution, tektites have been given varietal names derived from the localities in which they hdve been found. From the Moldau lliver in Czechoslovakia we obtain the moldavites. Billitonites were first recorded from the island of Billiton, though since then they have been found in the Malay Archipelago, Indo-China and the Philippine Islands. The name given to the Australian variety is australite, while a peculiar glass known as Darwin glass, or queenstownite, comes from a very restricted area about Mount Darwin and Queenstown in Tasmania. "In Australia, tektites have been found in every State of the Commonwealth, including the Northern Territory, though they are far more common in the south-eastern part of West Australia and the south-western portion of South Australia. Generally speaking, the australites are found on the.surface, while the other varieties are associated with alluvial deposits.

" Australites are readily distinguishable from the rest by their symmetry of form. The main types are either buttonshaped, spherical, elongated or dumb bell-shaped, and, while there do exist exceptions, it is remarkable how few •they are in the many thousands that have been examined. The moldavites are bottle-preen in colour, while both the australites and billitonites showcolour only in thin chips, and are otherwise black. The glassy material is quite amorphous, and no trace of crystallisation has ever been found. Chemically, there is a distinct family relationship between all types of tektites, while it is only in extremely rare cases that terrestrial rocks are found chemically resembling them. Naturally they vary in composition, but are all characterised by a high silica content. " Tektites have always been regarded as prehistoric, and as extending back into the Tertiary era, which, according to the more modern estimate, may be anything up to fifty million years ago. As they are being found to-day we would expect that, in Australia at any rate, there would be some aboriginal folklore regarding them, but there does not appear to be any record except that some tribes attributed magical powers to these objects."