Atacamite | Impactite

Atacamaties are found in a region of Chile. They are tiny, little jets of glass jetted from the white-hot furnace of an massive collision of a giant asteroid with our very own planet Earth.

According to a well written article on Meteorite Times Magazine, “These jetting rivulets of fire were seldom larger than half the diameter of a pencil. Reportedly, they are found over an area of some 20 square kilometers, so they must’ve been truly high-pressure squirts. Picture a viscous spray of orange-yellow-white molten glass streaking from the unthinkable place where the kinetic energy of a massive body moving at tens of kilometers per second met an immovable object (earth) and flashed at an instant into shock waves and heat radiating outward at velocities greatly exceeding the speed of sound!” – Author: Jim Tobin