Ivory Coast Tektite

Ivory Coast tektites are, by far, the rarest tektites, and can be difficult for even the most determined collectors to find. This is because most were found decades ago in agricultural fields or mines and kept by either the finders or sold to eager collectors, and have been resting safely in old collections ever since.

This Ivory Coast tektite is a particularly fine example: nearly spherical and jet black all around, it was once in the collection of Alain Carion, a French meteorite dealer who had the good fortune to happen upon a lady selling dozens of Ivory Coast tektites at a Paris flea market that her grandmother had acquired over decades when she lived on a plantation in Daoukro in western Ivory Coast.

It is believed that Ivory Coast tektites are the result of the extraterrestrial impact event that created the Lake Bosumtwi Impact Crater in Ghana one million years ago, when material would have flown up into the atmosphere, high enough and with enough velocity upon re-entry that it would have melted and developed a glassy exterior before coming back to Earth.