Mineraloid · Tektite

Tektite

SiO2-rich impact glass

Tektites are natural glasses ejected from meteorite impacts: black indochinites from Thailand, Vietnam and China (the largest strewn field, 790,000 years old), button-shaped australites, Ivory Coast tektites, Georgia and Texas (bediasite) tektites, and the yellow Libyan desert glass of Egypt. Indochinites are cheap and sold by weight; australites and bediasites are rarer. They are not meteorites, but are the terrestrial glass a meteorite produced.

Formula	SiO2-rich impact glass
IMA status	mineraloid
Crystal system	Amorphous
Mohs hardness	5.5–6.5
Group	Tektite
Type locality	None

Fakes and treatments

Indochinites are widely imitated in glass; genuine ones have pitted, grooved surfaces and no bubbles at the surface. Libyan desert glass is imitated with yellow bottle glass.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Strata. "Tektite" (Mineral). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/minerals/tektite. Accessed 2026-09-21.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-tektite,
  title        = {Tektite},
  author       = {{Stratum Strata}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/minerals/tektite}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Mineral article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, wikidata, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Fakes and treatments

Referenced by

Elsewhere