tektites

The fish fossils in North Dakota had telltale signs of a planetary-scale impact, including the presence of tektites.

UC Berkeley Professor Walter Alvarez was among the scientists asked to investigate whether the tiny glass beads found amid the site, were "tektites." The fish at the dig site were found preserved by what the scientists believe to be tektites - glass beads formed in the atmosphere from rock melted by the impact.

sitting room overflowing with his collection: books of all sizes lining the walls, cardboard and wooden boxes containing tektites stacked on desks and tables, piles of large boxes on the floor, Igorot wood-carvings here and there.'

What Are Tektites? "For two centuries scientists have been puzzled by certain small glassy objects, usually rounded, that are found in great numbers in some geographical areas, but are virtually absent elsewhere.

And so began a 22-year search for more of the rocks that Mr Al Haddad calls "tektites," which are defined as small black glassy objects believed to have been formed as molten debris in meteorite impacts.

Eduard Suess died; an Austrian geologist and selenologist; advocated a cosmic origin of tektites.

Strange glassy objects--called "tektites" and "impactites"--are found by the thousands in sites scattered across the earth.

Called Chicxulub (cheek'-she-loob), the crater is thought to have been excavated by an object six miles across that threw into the atmosphere debris still found around the globe as glassy spheres or tektites, shocked quartz and a layer of iridium-enriched dust.

4:45 TWO POSSIBLE GEORGIA TEKTITES FOUND IN BIBB COUNTY, GEORGIA,

Thursday, November 12 British Cactus and Succulent Society - Northumbria branch, talk, Tektites and Meteorites, by George Wake, St Aidan's Community Centre, Brunton Park, 7.30pm.