Moldavite. Tiny Glass Domed Tektite, Czech Republic
$ 59.00
Moldavite Tektite, Tiny Glass Dome. Don't have a room-size cabinet of curiosities? Or a whole wing on your home? Maybe just a single little shelf? Now you can have a mini natural history museum!
- Tiny glass dome, cork and label
- Impactite origin: Chlum, Czech Republic
- Lechatelierite mineraloid
- Each specimen weighs ~.35g
- Small 1" dome - see US penny for scale
- Assembled and labeled in Detroit
- Each is unique and will vary slightly from the photos
Moldavite is thought to have formed about 15 million years ago in the impact event that produced the Ries and Steinheim craters in southeastern Germany. An incoming asteroid is thought to have broken into two pieces that produced this pair of craters. The impacting bodies approached from the southwest. They hit with a high enough velocity to melt and splatter the target rock across a strewn field that includes portions of what is now the Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany.
Most of the splatter solidified in the air and fell to Earth in the Czech Republic. Meteorite experts have named these materials "impactites." Moldavite is also considered to be a mineraloid because it is a naturally occurring, inorganic solid that does not have a crystalline structure. It solidified so quickly that atoms did not have enough time to organize themselves into minerals.
