Tektites are small, pitted, pebble-like objects made of green - black high quality glass which are naturally distributed over certain regions of the Earth’s surface. Tektites remain one of the most mysterious rock types on Earth, which have aroused curiosity for many people of several generations. Dr. J. A. O’Keefe stated in the foreword of his Tektites book (1963): “It seems to
me that the most interesting stage in any investigation is the one in which people are still struggling to understand what sort of thing they are dealing with.”

Tektites exhibit a number of meteoritic features including ablation and aerodynamic deformation, flight orientation, distribution within a certain strewn field, sharp difference from native rocks, and so on. However, they don’t have cosmic ray tracks and Al - Nd isotopic characteristics of outer space or lunar origin. Although Dr. J. D. O’Keefe and Dr. D. R. Chapman of NASA
and others have found some evidences showing the lunar origin of tektites, melting and jetting of terrestrial rocks, caused by a large meteorite impact on Earth, are widely regarded as the mechanism of tektite formation.

Collection of tektites are critical to solve the scientific riddle of their origin.Tektites are an important part of rock collections in the world’s top natural history museums, such as the British Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Museum and Australian Museum. A tektite researcher usually tries to collect as many samples as possible. Dr. H. O. Beyer
of the Philippine possessed more than a half millions tektites in the late 1950s (H. H. Nininger, 1972). NASA bought a part of Beyer's collection in the 1960s. H. H. Nininger collected 50,000 Indochinites from South Vietnam and found the rare plastic deformed tektites (H. H. Nininger and G. I. Huss, 1967). Dr. D. R. Chapman of the NASA’s Ames Research Center gathered several tons of tektites (Voyage!, 1998, No.5). His massive collection and research notes are in the Smithsonian Institution now (recent email from L. Varricchio).

The outer appearance of tektites is mostly shining, odd and lovely. It is surprising to see some tektite shapes look similar to common things: ‘buttons’, ‘dumbbells’, ‘teardrops’, ‘discs’, ‘spheres’, and ‘boats’. Their sculptured surfaces, commonly with flow lines, suggest they were not man-made, instead they apparently entered or re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere from
space. Tektites are not only valuable samples for study, they also represent natural “re-entry” objects which can provide a lot of aerodynamic information about atmospheric entry. Unlike a missile, the manned space shuttle is always designed with a blunt end forward, which resembles an oriented teardrop tektite with its blunt end earthward while falling! We can learn a lot more by studying the shape, surface sculpturing and deformation of tektites, which could provide some significant information for further space exploration.

People of various regions started to collect tektites many years ago. Today, some tektites, such as Moldavites and Georgiaites, are regarded as rare gemstones or valuable scientific samples and sold for $3-10/gram. Some people who believe in crystal healing can feel the great energy a tektites contains! In the past decade, more than ten tons of tektites (mainly Indochinites and Philippinites) have been collected in Asia to make jewelry. It is much easier to obtain a tektite than a meteorite. Some people may falsely think that tons and tons of tektites are instantly available from several countries. We have been involved in tektite collecting for over ten years. We know just how scarce those odd objects are. At some places, where tektites used to be casually visible and penniless, we can find only a few broken pieces in one whole day.

Tektites found so far have been on the Earth’s surface for a long period of time. Many of them have been eroded by rivers, ground water or sea water, losing their surface features. A large percentage of them are used to make jewelry. Still, many pieces are damaged during handling and shipping. Therefore, large and complete tektites are scarce, and those with special
original or aerodynamic significance are even rarer. Some meteorite collectors do not collect tektites because tektites are relatively common. As a matter of fact, collecting tektites is somewhat like collecting quartz crystals. To find a piece of quartz worthy of one dollar or less is easy. To get an outstanding piece of museum-quality, which can be many thousand dollars, is difficult! In short, tektites are beautiful, unusual, old, rare and important scientifically
.They will become a popular collectible worldwide like rock crystals among
advanced collectors or beginners, museums and researchers.

Copyright © Great Wall Consulting & Trading, 1998