Description: This is a 45 gram quasi dumbbell shaped of Indochinite tektite from Vietnam.

The Vietnam tektites are part of the Indochinite strewn field found in Southeast Asia. These tektites are mostly black in appearance and formed during a cataclysmic  meteorite impact approximately 700,000 years ago.

This tektites was ejected from the Earth's surface by a massive meteorite impact that created a mushroom cloud so huge that likely extended into the upper atmosphere. The 'stem' of the mushroom cloud formed a massive superheated convection column that both baked the ejecta (tektites) and sent it into ballistic trajectories that allowed for distribution of material as far away as 11,000 Km.  These vitreous astronauts are thought to be the least aqueous material on the planet, having had every bit of volatiles (water) baked out of it in the act of its creation. After being pressure melted by the massive impact, it was then super heated after being shot up the convection column before being ejected into freezing space at sub-orbital heights. Then it further tempered during reentry, before it lost it's ejection velocity and fell to the ground at terminal velocity to form the distinctive glass-like structures we find throughout areas of Southeast Asia today. Indochinites appear to be black but they are really a very dark green, this in contrast to the vivid forest and olive greens of the European Moldavite tektites.