Australite
Australites are tektites found in Australia. They are mostly dark or black, and have shapes including discs and bowls that are not seen in other tektites. NASA used the shape of "flanged button" australites in designing re-entry modules for the Apollo program in the 1960s.[1]
History
Indigenous Australians termed australites ooga ("staring eyes"), and they were used as sacred objects or as cutting tools.[citation needed] Europeans found out about australites in 1857, when explorer Thomas Mitchell gave naturalist Charles Darwin a mysteriously shaped piece of natural black glass. Darwin thought that australites were of volcanic origin due to their similarity to obsidian, volcanic glass.[1][2][3] Later, australites were called blackfellows' buttons and obsidian bombs.[citation needed]
One of the first scientists to seriously study australites was Charles Fenner, who saw his first australite in 1907. He believed that australites were glass meteorites.[4]
Origin
Early theories about the source of australites included volcanoes, the bushfires that are common in Australia, or fusion of sand by lightning (fulgurites). Some scientists believed them to be meteorites, possibly lunar meteorites ejected from the Moon in impacts (now disproved due to the different composition of lunar rocks).[1]
Although different theories about the origin of australites are still circulating, most scientists believe that australites formed during enormous meteoroid and comet impacts on the Earth. Those impacts ejected myriads of small rocks right out of the atmosphere. The australites acquired their streamlined, aerodynamic forms when they re-entered the Earth's atmosphere while molten and travelling at high velocities.[1]
Most australites are found in Southern Australia, below 25 degrees latitude.[5] The impact that created them may be linked to an enormous "scatter ellipse" below the ice sheet of Antarctica. This impact could have been of sufficient strength to jettison molten rocks from the initial impact site to Australia, where they re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and became australites.[6] A date of 790,000 years ago has been proposed for the impact event, based on analysis of australites.[6]
Shapes
The primary forms of australites are sphere, oval, boat, dumbbell and teardrop. Australites are smaller and different in shape to other tektites. Their initial velocity was higher than other tektites: enough to propel them just out of the Earth's atmosphere, so they then re-entered the atmosphere and underwent a rare secondary melting.[7]
One of the most famous australite shapes is the "flanged button". Flanged buttons are rare, but the most unusual and rarest australites are discs, bowls, plates and other small forms (mini tektites). They are very thin. George Baker called them "flying flanges", the result of distortion of "initially small primary forms by aerodynamic frictional heating". He wrote:
These are all very special forms of tektites not encountered among the other known tektite-strewn fields of the world, the rarity and unexcelled [sic?] character of these well-preserved, complete to nearly complete, unique types of tektites cannot be overstressed.[8]
Well preserved shapes are found near Port Cambell in Western Australia.
Chapman and Larson experimented on the ablation of australites. At first they seemed to prove their extraterrestrial origin, but later in repeated studies they claimed that the australites could not have come from outside the Earth-Moon system. They were able to reproduce the shapes, flanges and the peculiar network of the rings on the front face in great detail.[9]
References
- ^ a b c d "Australites". Museum Victoria. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ "Australites". Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ Cassidy, W. A. (1956). "Australite Investigations and their Bearing on the Tektite Problem". Journal: Meteoritics, volume 1, number 4. p. 426. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ "Australites : a unique shower of glass meteorites / by Charles Fenner". 1934. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ "Tektites". 2009-12-24. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ a b "Antarctic Discovery". Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ "Australite Shapes". Jan. 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Baker, G.. (1963). "Disc-, Plate-, and Bowl-Shaped Australites". Meteoritics, volume 2, number 1. p. 36. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
{{cite web}}: Text "1963" ignored (help); Text "year" ignored (help) - ^ H. E. Landsberg (1965). Advances in Geophysics, Volume 10. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
