Bediasites

StarDate

It would take a couple of hours to fly from Chesapeake Bay, on the coast of Virginia, to the forests and swamps of eastern Texas. But about 35 million years ago, some brownish-green bits of glass made the trip in just minutes – the result of a massive collision between Earth and a space rock.

The rock was an asteroid or comet, and was perhaps two or three miles in diameter. It slammed into the coastline at tens of thousands of miles per hour. The impact gouged a crater about 50 miles across and a mile deep, which later became Chesapeake Bay.

The collision vaporized the space rock and some of the ground it hit. It also blasted millions of tons of water, mud, and granite high into the sky.

The heat of the impact melted sand and some of the other debris. Molten droplets blasted through the air at thousands of miles per hour. Many of them were sculpted into aerodynamic shapes, like teardrops or spheres. As they cooled, they fell to Earth as pieces of glass known as tektites.

A major field of them has been found in Georgia. Another is in Texas. Its tektites are known as Bediasites. They’re named for a small town, which took the name from a native tribe that inhabited the region long ago.

The first Bediasites were discovered in 1936. The largest is nicknamed the “Star of Sabine” for the location where it was found. It weighs about seven ounces – a large chunk of colored glass that crossed half a continent in a hurry.

Script by Damond Benningfield