Superficially, georgiaites look like volcanic glass, or
obsidian; however, there was no volcanic activity in or near
Georgia 35 million years ago, and georgiaites lack the mineral
crystals that characterize volcanic glass. Natural glasses of
the same age from Texas, called bediasites, and smaller
spherules of glass dating from the same era have been found in
deep-sea sediments off the eastern coast of North America and in
the Gulf of Mexico. Natural glasses of different ages have also
been found in central Europe (15-million-year-old moldavites),
in Africa's Ivory Coast (1-million-year-old tektites), and in
Indochina and Australia (800,000-year-old indochinites and
australites). All of these glasses, including the georgiaites,
are known as tektites. All tektites are thought to be impact
glasses; that is, they represent material that was melted as a
result of heat generated by the impact of an asteroid or comet
on the earth. The energy produced by one of these impacts is
tremendous—some meteorites travel at ve