African Moldavite??

A while back I bought some "African Moldavite" on eBay. When I got it, it just looked like flat green glass beads about the size of your thumbnail with a white powder coating all over. Is there any such thing in nature called African Moldavite? or was I had?

I did a quick internet search, and the vast majority listed African Moldavite as a fake. Their opinion was that it was bottle glass (from bottles themselves or the raw blanks of glass) or some form of obsidian. There was also the opinion that only samples from the Czech and Moravian regions could truely called Moldavite. If there are samples of tektites from Africa, they might be similar but unlikely to come from the same strike and shouldn't have that name (sort of like the hiddenite thread that was covered in MinDat).

Paul is right. Moldavite is not found in Africa. Other tektites are found in Africa, but not Moldavite, nor have I heard of any other AUTHENTIC green tektites being found in Africa.

Green bottle glass pebbles naturally tumbled on the beach???
Beware also of "Tibetan tektites"!

The GIA lists the refractive index (RI) of Moldavite as 1.480-1.510 and Specific Gravity (SG) as 2.32=2.40.

For Obsidian the RI = 1.480-1.510 and SG=2.33-2.50

For Libyan Desert Glass RI=1.460 SG=2.20.

See the GIA Gem Reference Guide pages 132-134.

The two pieces of African Moldavite I tested had RI = 1.518 to 1.529 and SG = 2.46-2.48. The African Moldavite seems too heavy and has too high of indices of refraction to be natural glass.

Tom Ph.D. Graduate Gemologist.

So called "African Moldavite" is being sold by new age shops in New Zealand at present, at rather expensive prices, so I'm glad I read this thread - thanks for that info.

A bit like after Mt St Helens blew, shops here were full of lovely smooth, clear polished blue glass, which was claimed to be obsidian from that volcano ... yeah sure, as if! This same Mt St Helens rubbish also reappeared after Ruapehu erupted in 1995/6. Unfortunately, the new age shop owners don't know any difference.

Chris. J

I believe there is a natural glass found at the base of Mt kilimanjaro, that is a TYPE of natural glass. The logistics in developing Africa for creating fakes and synthsising materials become to complicated. For if there were/are such producers of such materials. As there are melted glass here none of which I found to meet the quality of the original material that was found , in which I happen to be lucky enough to own three beautiful gems of the so called "African Moldavite" not bought on Ebay. The funny thing is that were the material was originally been found is harvested out. Can some one explain that?. As some developing countries in Africa are only worlds away and some light years behind the rest of the worlds progression, I have found the Gem Community only to ready to discredit materials gathered from this part of the world. Could it be posssible that an RI or SG reading could vary depending on natural factors such as tempreture,present minerals at the time of occurance given the height of Mt. Kilamanjaro etc. Could create another measurment criterion for materials present and yet to be discovered.

Moldavites are usually classified as tecktites (a glass produced by meteorite impacts). Glasses produced from volcanic rocks are more properly called obsidian. Africa has a long history of man made glasses (Egyptians were doing that 5000 years ago).

Lybian Desert glass is the natural object nearest to a tektite in that part of the world. It is light yellow, clear transparent, with few bubbles. Impactite status still debated, as far as I know.

Alfredo, can you explain the "Beware of Tibetan Tektites" comment please? Could you give me some info? I just had a customer ask for some and I had never heard of it. Feeling it may just be another fake/fraud?

Many years ago some sellers had ordinary southeast asian tektites (indochinites) and etched them in hydrofluoric acid to give them a deeply channeled surface like moldavites, and called them "Tibetan". In the mystical market, anything labelled "Tibetan" sells better! (Which is why some mystical dealers would take quartz crystals from Nepal or India and label them "Tibetan" - a relatively small shift of imaginary political boundaries )



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2008 01:29AM by Alfredo Petrov.

I should add that the term "African Moldavite" that started this thread is an oxymoron anyway - a dead giveaway that a none-too-knowledgeable seller is trying to pull a fast one. Moldavite, by definition, is a tektite from the Moldau river basin strewn field so, whereas a term like "African Tektite" might make some sense (and there are tektites from the Ivory Coast), "African Moldavite" makes as much sense as "Inuit mangos".

It might not be moldavite, So is it natural or man made?

In the last year or so I saw a program mentioning some African dessert glass. It was quite pale and there was a lot of it. I have some recollection of an air burst??? and the expedition morphing into or out of fossil hunting or an archaeology expedition.

Rob, are you thinking of Lybian desert glass?
Usually yellow in color, it was used to make scarabs in the headpiece fro King Tut.
They have not pinpointed the cause of it as of yet, but due to inclusions in is believed meteor related.

P.S. it looks nothing like "african moldavite" which screams fake



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2010 11:41PM by Adam Kelly.

I'm kind of hazy on it. I don't remember where it was, but now that you mention it I think it opened with Pharonic jewelry that I remember as being a little more yellow than what they found in the desert. So you are probably right Adam. It was the palest Tektite that I've ever seen. No one could confuse it with Moldavite.

Rob,
I have one that is about the color of amber, but has blue "flashes" of color due to apparently very rare inclusions.
I have handeled many kilos of this material and only seen two pieces, mine being the better.

I also have a large, but pale and milky one for trade.

Do you know what the inclusions are? Could they shed light on the origin?

Re: LDG - They have studied the inclusions in LDG, and they're inconclusive! They do contain trace elements associated with meteors, but no impact site has been determined, hence the air burst theory. The temperature had to be intense because zircons tested from the glass showed melt evidence.

Re: other Moldavite - There is another trade name circulating called "White Moldavite" which is not even a tecktite at all! It is treated calcite, from the Mohave Desert in Arizona. There is also Moldavite incense and Moldavite oil, both containing "Essence of Moldavite". Perhaps I could interest you in some Moldavite from my fridge, growing on my cheese.

Caveat Emptor...

There is a natural green glass/obsidian found in Africa. I do not know the actual causes of it, but I do know it is NOT man-made. Every know and then our Kenyan miner friends hit some in the Tanzania/Merelani/Kenya/Mali/Umba/Tuduru region. My best guess is it is some sort of obsidian. Coloring caused by the high content of chromium in the ground in those regions. But I wouldn't call them tektites or moldavite, just a natural glass that no one seems to know the exact causes of.

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