Tektites In Good'ol Tennessee?

[Tennessees Pride]

Is this not what i think it is? Certainly appears to me to be a microtektite. It is about 3/16 of an inch in length. I have place a sliver of pet wood to point it out. I have left it in the original matrix to better show what's going on......have i went crazy or is that not Spherules in that matrix here and there w/ it too?!?! And what's up w/ that unidentified black striated tubular shaped object there in the matrix? Sometimes volcanic micro glass (from pyroclastic debris?) Can resemble an impact Tektite (especially to my untrained eye! ), so i don't know perhaps this stuff could be from an eruption? I do have to ask one thing, and i beg your pardon....please don't ask me specifically where i'm recovering this material right now. I want to say badly, but i just can't presently...but in the future i promise to. It certainly is late Cretaceous from West Tennessee. As far as i can find out, this material has been unknown until now.....if it's what i'm thinking it is. I am also gonna post a couple pics of what i'm thinking will be Tektites, they are out of the matrix, so the shapes can be made alittle better....if they aren't good enough resolution, forgive me, they are somewhere around 1/2 the size of the one in the matrix(or alittle larger), & i am limited w/ the resolution of my phone. One of em reminds me of a lil' Bananna. so whatcha think....am i a complete fool, or maybe here is some evidence of deep impact/volcanic eruption?

[bdevey]

I think the darker pieces are carbonized wood. Interesting photo, I'm still trying to piece it all together........

[Tennessees Pride]

I have other evidences of strange things going on...i'll post a few.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Tennessees Pride

[Tennessees Pride]

This item was found on a nearby Native American habitation site. The only stone like this i've ever saw here. Because i never have washed the sediment completely off, it may give the impression of being cemented w/ an iron-type bonding agent.....but NO. All of the pebbles have actually been fused together! No cementing agent!...strange....

[Tennessees Pride]

This stuff is coming out of the same layer...it has cracks running all along it's surface on most of the specimans....shapes are extremely unusual to me....upon breaking open, it is light green on the inside, under magnification, tiny black spots are detectable....i was thinking perhaps Dunite....but really have no idea. Reminds me of objects that have aquired aerodynamic shapes....in flight....

[Tennessees Pride]

A tear-drop shaped example of the same material...good cracked pattern. Also, pic#3: another example of that same material.

[Tennessees Pride]

This is what the inside looks like wet and dry...under magnification it has a somewhat crystaline appearance....

[Tennessees Pride]

The same material i have been posting may even @ other places where the same layer outcrops may be found slightly different looking.....cow-pattie shaped, without the outside cracks...

Edited April 8, 2014 by Tennessees Pride

[Tennessees Pride]

It may even look like this!

[Tennessees Pride]

Now, here and there in this same layer, i am coming up with a transparent dull-green "stone" (if you will)....that may look like just another rock or something....but, i know my rocks in my area...one will hardly ever run up on one of these here. It has me seriously wondering about it! I have noticed something.....tiny "crescent-moon shapes all over it....strange...no one yet has explained to me about the crescent shapes....also this glass-like stuff has inclusions!!!

[Tennessees Pride]

These specimens and the following additional pic may have nothing @ all with th)s subject....found them years ago and kept them because i thought they were pretty. But the thing is, ya just don't see those kind of stones in my area......and (!).....they have those same "crescent-moon shapes all over tyem..... if anybody knows what the crescent shapes are, please post it.

[Tennessees Pride]

Another shot...

[Tennessees Pride]

I have other strange anomolies that may hint @ things....will post them later....

[fossilized6s]

With your theories and Cretaceous site could these be linked to the KT event? Have you ever reached the 1" thick gray "Hell balls" layer?

[Tennessees Pride]

No sir, the material in question on this thread is being recovered from a time which isn't close to the K/T.

[painshill]

I wouldn’t be prepared to venture much of an opinion on those finds, except to say that I’m not seeing anything that says “tektite” (micro- or otherwise) and I don’t believe that those finds are all geologically connected with one another. More precise locations or stratigraphy would be needed to make sensible comments.

The rocks with the crescent-shaped marks however have a likely explanation that doesn’t depend on knowing any more about where you found them. Lunate scars on quartz-rich material are most usually percussion marks and indicative of relatively high-energy transportation. At a microscopic level you get tiny lunate scars on rounded quartz grains which have experienced Aeolian transport (ie wind-blown sedimentation). Larger scars on pebbles and cobbles can be created in modest quantity by fluvial transport, but when you have as many as that on pebbles of that size, they are more probably from glacial or fluvoglacial transport.

Edited April 8, 2014 by painshill

[Tennessees Pride]

Painshill, thank you for your time and input on the subject,it hasn't went unnoticed sir,and i'd all but gave up on trying to understand the crescent shapes. You're suggestion seems very close to correct if you ask me....better than anything i'd came up w/, think i'm gonna go w/ that. Unless otherwise stated, everything was found from the same layer.....do you have any idea what that material w/ surface cracks could be?

[painshill]

It’s tough trying to identify rocks without having information about their properties or geological context. Also, (assuming my diagnosis of the crescents is correct) you have multiple pieces of material which exhibit signs of glacial or fluvoglacial transport with significant water polishing, so the deposit you are looking in might well include some glacial till. That is, some of the loose rocks could be erratic and completely unrelated to the surrounding geology. Based on the pictures/descriptions only…….

…… The material in the first set of pictures looks like petrified wood. The material in the second set of pictures that you perceive as “fused” looks to me like it’s more characteristic of carbonate or silicate cementation. The sausage shapes in the third set of pictures look like they might be burrow casts, together with other nodular and laminate cherty material. The cracked material with the crystalline interior looks like silty sandstone that’s so heavily silicified that it’s effectively quartzite. Ditto the “cow patties”. The material in the sixth set of pictures looks like decomposed chert. The final groups of pictures look like various kinds of quartzite or quartz-rich pebbles (some of them ferruginous).

Geologically, I don’t see anything that I would regard as unusual – except perhaps the diversity of rock types in a single deposit. A glacial moraine would readily explain that, but Tennessee doesn’t have any moraines as far as I know, because the ice sheet didn’t get beyond northern Kentucky. There are loess deposits in western Tennesse from wind-blown glacial “rock-flour” but they’re fine and silty – not coarse and stony. There are however older (tertiary) heterogeneous mixtures of heavily weathered rocks (quartz-pebble, chert-pebble, and quartzite-pebble decomposition residuum materials) present on upland surfaces and as “valley-fill” mixed in with the loess in parts of western Tennessee. Also in eastern Tennessee as colluvial deposits arising from snow-pack and extreme freeze-thaw beyond the edge of the ice sheet itself. Post-glacial melt-rivers have also transported occasional erratic pebbles beyond the glacial maxima.

A bit of googling to check if those are likely scenarios in the locality you are searching might assist you more in understanding what you have.

Edited April 9, 2014 by painshill

[Tennessees Pride]

Painshill, sir i am very sorry to have got you mixed up, forgive me. That is petrified in the first photo. I placed it there just to point to what i was presuming was a microtektite. It's there near the bottom of the pet wood...a small,skinny, and shiny shaped item that is somewhat stained w/ an iron oxide substance. That sir is what i was thinking was a tektite. And i can more than assure you that this layer this material is being extracted from is millions & millions of yr older than the K/T boundry. I know it must be hard to try to make sense of this stuff without formation information & ect. provided....for that i am sorry....just can't presently, and i sure wouldn't doubt in the least if the smooth stones w/ the crescent shapes were from a later time,like you suggested sir,cause they weren't extracted from the layer. I need to add one more small thing, those two strange shaped stones i was holding in my hand do resemble a burrow type shape, but they are certainly not, and are composed of the same material you were thinking might be quartzite.Thank you for your time & willingness to help me sir. Quite frankly, i am astounded @ you're vast knowledge of the geology of my area! I can tell you're a very educated man, & it just amazes me how you can be in England & know so much about the geology in my back yard! Cheers to you sir!

Edited April 10, 2014 by Tennessees Pride

[bdevey]

I think the darker pieces are carbonized wood. Interesting photo, I'm still trying to piece it all together........

I know, I have seen yellow crystals in a coal seam or with carbonized wood before, but can't find my info or photos. I think it was sulfur?

Object in post 10 is an Agate. Its funny you say half moon shapes. I never gave them much thought because when I find Agates in a crack or fracture they always look like that. So I thought they were a mold or cast of the fracture it was formed in. But now I wonder, are thy more of the process of conchoidal fracture.. Hmmm.. Maybe that crack was faulty.

[JohnBrian]

With your theories and Cretaceous site could these be linked to the KT event? Have you ever reached the 1" thick gray "Hell balls" layer?

What are "hell balls"?

[Tennessees Pride]

I know, I have seen yellow crystals in a coal seam or with carbonized wood before, but can't find my info or photos. I think it was sulfur?

Object in post 10 is an Agate. Its funny you say half moon shapes. I never gave them much thought because when I find Agates in a crack or fracture they always look like that. So I thought they were a mold or cast of the fracture it was formed in. But now I wonder, are thy more of the process of conchoidal fracture.. Hmmm.. Maybe that crack was faulty.

Sir, i have to say, that those comments about the crescent shapes being in agates in cracks & fractures has certainly threw me for a loop! That is VERY strange! Earthquake activity has happened in this area countless times in the past,& there is sure signs of it it the layers in question...just dont know @ what time (times) they could have happened. I do know "a few" of the objects coming out of the layer seem to have crescents on them,....that is why i had posted pics of those smooth pebbles...it seemed there "might" be some kind of connection. Still haven't got it all figured out.but, after awhile, it appears to me some kinda picture is forming that shows connections w/ various materials i have recovered.....native elemental Silicon,heavy minerals, possible Tecktites & Spherules,material that has been fused, material that looks like it formed it's present shapes aerodynamically (the stuff w/ surface cracks), and also pebbles of the same material from that fused example, but these pebbles appear to be blown to pieces!.....so far i have only found those pebbles in situ @ one site, but i pulled them from the layer myself, and their broken edges are sharp and jagged!!!......very,very strange! There aren't enough pebbles there to justify them being beat together, and no way they have been water transported because the edges are way to sharp.....all of that is starting to tell me a strange story.

[Tennessees Pride]

JohnBrian, sir i think Fossilized6s is refering to the Spherules in the K/T.

[JohnBrian]

I've never dug in the k/t so . . .

I just Googled "Spherules in the K/T" & found the answer!

Thanks!

[Tennessees Pride]

No problem. I haven't been able to get in the K/T yet either, but gonna go try for some spherules out of it soon and compare material w/ these other layers the stuff in this thread is coming out of. I'm thinking i can find K/Tin the northwestern part of the county bordering mine on the west...if so, i'll post some pics.