Tektites are natural silica glass and type of impactites. They are formed by a large meteoritic impact on Earth's surface and rapid melting of impacted rocks and sediments. The melt is ejected in the atmosphere where is cooled and reshaped and then falls down on different places on Earth called strewn fields. Tektites are similar to other types of natural silica glass - volcanic glass that form with rapid cooling of lava, fulgurites that form after lightning shock and others, as libyan desert glass, and also to synthetic glass. We analyzed tektites from Central-European field called moldavites, tektites from Australasian strewn field (philippinites bicol, philippinites anda, indochinites, thailandites), tektites from Kazakhstan called irghizites, obsidians, colombianites, saffordites, libyan desert glass, fulgurites and synthetic glass. We specified their morphological features (luster, color, shape, surface sculpture), density with Westphal's balance and analyzed them with optical microscope, X-ray computed microtomography, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction. We determined their chemical composition with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. Following we identified tektites and separated them from other analyzed samples of natural and synthetic glass. Majority of the samples have been classified properly.
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