[meteorite-list] THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF TEKTITES, Part Three

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi,

Part Three of
THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF TEKTITES


Leaving the Volcanic Tektite Exhibition Hall, we enter the spacious 
Semi-Extra-Terrestrial Pavilion.
7. The Terrestrial Expulsion and Re-Entry Theory. Kuiper, 1953, 1954. Famous 
for much better ideas than this one, Kuiper proposed that at the peak of 
accretional heating in the formation of the Earth, impacts ejected silicate 
terrestrial materials into solar orbits, which material was later re-melted 
by close passages of the Sun and then ultimately collided with the Earth, 
producing tektites. Harold Urey immediately performed a dynamic analysis 
which showed that a very close collection of very small bodies cannot remain 
in association while in orbit in the Solar System but are quickly disrupted 
and dispersed everywhere, scattered by tidal forces. The unexpected result 
of this was to destroy the very-long-held notion of comets as "flying gravel 
banks" as impossible and shove Fred Whipple's "dirty snowball" theory into 
the starring role it enjoys today. So, even bad ideas can be fruitful.

8. The Terrestrial Impactite Tektite Theory. This is the currently 
prevailing contemporary theory and was first proposed by Spencer in 1933, 
followed by Urey, 1953 and 1957; Khan, 1947 (anti-matter impacts only); 
Barnes, 1961; Cohen, 1961; and Gentner et al, 1962. Despite many 
difficulties with terrestrial impact theories, the theory has been regarded 
as "proven" since the 1982 publication by Shaw and Wasserburg, "Age and 
provenance of the target materials for tektites and possible impactites as 
inferred from Sm-Nd and Rb-Sr systematics." It is now officially orthodoxy.

The Semi-Extra-Terrestrial Pavilion has an equally spacious 
Entirely-Extra-Terrestrial Wing, which we will visit next.

9. Meteoritic Origin of Tektites. Lecroix and Seuss in 1932 proposed 
tektites to be the shed ablative melt from the glassy crust of an as-yet 
undiscovered meteorite type. But Goldschmidt in 1921 had already explained 
tektites as just another type of meteorites by postulating a tektite-like 
parent body that tektites came from, an idea expanded by Linck, 1926, and by 
Paneth in 1940.

This idea may be new to the reader, but it cleanly and neatly eliminates ALL 
problems in explaining tektites and wins the Occam's Razor Award in the 
bargain. It's simple and obvious; just as there are iron parent bodies for 
iron meteorites and stony parent bodies for stone meteorites, there's a 
tektite parent body for tektite "meteorites." All the many problems faced by 
other tektite theories vanish completely with this theory. It is merely the 
classic hypothesis of meteoritics, now regarded as slam-dunk fact, applied 
to tektites; what's the problem, then?

Well, it's too damned neat, that's what. There are only four falls of true 
tektites in 34,000,000 years, each presumably the result of a large impactor 
composed of that unique tektite material. It must be a tremendously rare 
material that exists only in the form of large objects. Why are there no 
little tektite impacts, why no occasional small tektite falls, why are no 
single tektite object discovered as meteorites are, why no sign of these 
tektite parent bodies in asteroidal surveys, and many other why's? leap to 
mind as well.

Well, you could cook up separate answers to each of these questions (I could 
anyway), but it rapidly begins to sound like special pleading. The chief 
reason why the perplexed don't just rush en masse to this most simple 
explanation is, oddly, the improbability that so simple an explanation could 
solve such a complex problem.

10. The Direct Cometary Origin of Tektites. This was first proposed by Suess 
in 1951, that tektites are formed from devolatilized cometary residues. In 
the same year Lyttleton in response proposed a mechanism whereby comets 
could form and direct streams of tektites to the Earth in a close cometary 
passage, which was based on the gravel-bank theory of comets which no one 
now believes in (openly, but listen to the talk of rubble-pile objects both 
cometary and asteroidal). There is no reason to think that the composition 
of comets resembles the composition of tektites. However, a comet sample 
could change that overnight, but they seems awfully wet to be the source of 
ultra-dry tektites. Direct impact of a comet would be included in the 
Terrestrial Impact theories, though.

11. The Unique Extra-Terrestrial Theories of Tektite Origins: Belot, 1933, 
suggested that tektites derived from a former satellite of the Earth that 
fell to Earth in stages. This notion re-appears in 1985 from John O'Keefe; 
see No. 14 below. Denaeyer, 1944, concluded that tektites derived from the 
glassy crust of a planetoid, some planetoid. Washington and Adams, 1951, 
wrote that tektites derived from the "original glass skin of a cosmic body." 
Stair, 1964, proposed that tektites derived from the crust of a lost planet 
located between Jupiter and Mars (reading too much bad science fiction). 
Cassidy, 1956, thought tektites derived from a self-melting radioactive 
planetoid with an acid crust (worrying about The Bomb, are we?). Barnes, 
1957, a leading and important tektite scientist, one of the first, briefly 
entertained the notion that tektites were fragments of a single body of 
tektite material that has since been destroyed by collisions. Well, it's 
tempting.



Continued in Part Four



Sterling K. Webb