Mystery glass in the Atacama

[d_day]

https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-shards-of-glass-are-strewn-across-miles-of-desert-and-we-finally-know-why?fbclid=IwAR3fcS4_hdmOX8g_Oin6XloVBSDI_aNU6tFuAd1SSkNOTgAT9zM6r4oX3j8

[Morlock]

Very interesting article. I knew about the extraterrestrial glass in the Libyan desert but never heard about this. While the article does explain the extraterrestrial origin, it doesn't state how large of a meteor it took to throw all that glass a distance of 50 miles. It must have been huge unless there's some other explanation.

Thanks for posting.

[d_day]

1 hour ago, Morlock said:

Very interesting article. I knew about the extraterrestrial glass in the Libyan desert but never heard about this. While the article does explain the extraterrestrial origin, it doesn't state how large of a meteor it took to throw all that glass a distance of 50 miles. It must have been huge unless there's some other explanation.

Thanks for posting.

Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of details left out. That’s not unexpected though, considering how recent the discovery is. I just wonder how long it’s going to take for people to start searching for and selling this material, and how long it will take for the fakes to hit the market.

[Morlock]

3 hours ago, d_day said:

Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of details left out. That’s not unexpected though, considering how recent the discovery is. I just wonder how long it’s going to take for people to start searching for and selling this material, and how long it will take for the fakes to hit the market.

We had a meteorite hunter on this forum awhile back who lived in Chile and hunted the Atacama Desert. He's probably hunting for them right now. 

But I don't think they'll get the same prices as Libyan glass since they aren't particularly aesthetic. Just a solid mass of ugly gray looking glass that might appeal only to the avid collectors.

[billpeters]

The article claim that this event covering 45 miles plus was somehow responsible for the wiping out of mega fauna, which actually gradually declined, is as about as believable as the Meteor Crater event in AZ 49,500 years ago wiping out all mega fauna in North America. If confirmed that area covered is far too small and only a temporary disruption in regional life.

billpeters

[d_day]

On 11/3/2021 at 11:03 AM, billpeters said:

The article claim that this event covering 45 miles plus was somehow responsible for the wiping out of mega fauna, which actually gradually declined, is as about as believable as the Meteor Crater event in AZ 49,500 years ago wiping out all mega fauna in North America. If confirmed that area covered is far too small and only a temporary disruption in regional life.

billpeters

The article does not make that claim. 
 

“As for whether the meteoric airburst may have had anything to do with that extinction, it's not yet clear.

‘It's too soon to say if there was a causal connection or not,’ Schultz says. ‘But what we can say is that this event did happen around the same time as when we think the megafauna disappeared, which is intriguing.’”

[Bedrock Bob]

On 11/3/2021 at 8:14 AM, d_day said:

Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of details left out. That’s not unexpected though, considering how recent the discovery is. I just wonder how long it’s going to take for people to start searching for and selling this material, and how long it will take for the fakes to hit the market.

I'm already making the $h!t in my forge and getting my eBay account set up.

Morlock is right. It's ugly. Some guys would have to have a chunk. I wouldn't buy one.

If I lived close by I would go hunt them. But I couldn't love them. They are just too butt ugly.

It's kinda like trinitite. Or one of those other strange minerals created by chaos.

It's as cool as a shatter cone or a hunk of that Meteor Crater rust. Not as cool as a tektite. Way less cool than a pallasite. 

It's neat to know it happened. I bet there are other meteoritic glass fields out there. There have been many big impacts. And there are some mighty strange blobs of glass out there laying around.