Georgiaite / Tektite

Somewhere between 1300 and 1500 Georgiaites are known, the North American tektites (Bediasites and Georgiaites) were produced by a 34 million year impact in Chesapeake Bay

Aug 25, 2004, 17:55
Associated Press
Email this article
Printer friendly page



ATLANTA - A layer of quartz grains found in an east Georgia kaolin mine have been traced to the impact of a giant asteroid that crashed near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay 35 million years ago.

The 54-mile-wide (86-kilometer-wide) crater left by the meteor, the sixth-largest in the world, has previously been identified as the source of a rare mineral called Georgiaite. Small, glassy, olive-green beads of it have been found for decades in more than a dozen middle Georgia counties.

They are a type of impact-produced natural glass called tektite.