Gunnison Crater Tektites, Colorado Options

[CP]

We have a discoverer in our midst folks! With over 2 decades of field experience in prospecting/mining across several different mineral and gem arenas including diamonds, gold, etc. We are all very lucky to not only have his personal participation and knowledge shared here, but we are also able to see first hand what new discoveries can produce!
This is a very rare treat these days in my honest opinion. My grandfather was one of the men who discovered jade in Wyoming (mid 1930's) and I wish very much I would have had known him better and his personal experiences/history of discovery times!

So lets get on with the information (there will be lots)
Johnny (Astrobleme) through many exhausting hours of work I'm sure, discovered an ancient crater formation here in Colorado around Gunnison. Now named the Gunnison crater, and has produced some very interesting tektites. Being part of Johnny's discovery I would imagine they helped prove out his crater theroy. (feel free to correct me if wrong Johnny) Tektite origin itself has been quite a discussion over years past and still is, but they are very very "dry" rocks. The pressure and heat that creates them are mind boggling!

Here is a link to the Gunnison Country Times article / news release.

Recently Johnny was looking for lapidary artists to work some tektites and we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to work some into cabochons and jewelry. We are very happy to say that we (Denise and myself) got to be the first lapidary artists to work any of these tektites.
While I was cutting the slices to use for cabochons I noticed there were some metal inclusions which Johnny later examined under magnification and...........well I'll let him tell you about the possible new information found. It's very exciting!

Here are a few pics to go along with this thread which I'm sure will be one to keep up on for the future!
These 2 pics (courtesy of Johnny) show arial views of the crater.





This is a pic of some rough pieces you all may recognize from the "what's this #28" thread.


After getting his cabochons in hand he could examine them a bit more closely and sent us these 2 pics too share with everyone.





All this hypervelocity impact discussion has my mind goin' for sure!!

More pics of the finished pieces made from these to follow.........
CP

[ASTROBLEME]

Hello Everyone:

Way back when, as a teenager, my family drove across the area practically every weekend during the summer in order to get to our favorite fishing hole on the Gunnison River. I never gave the odd granite outcrops that stood out from the surrounding volcanic terrain much thought until it started looking good for diamond prospecting a few years ago.

Here's a photo of an exposed granite outcrop on the northeast side of the remaining crater. I've added in the hand drawing with matching lines just to draw attention to the orientation of the displacement fractures as they are visible today. Tremendous pressures were needed to crack and shift the granite into the perfectly circular rim that measure 5 miles across.

[attachment=3139:NE_Rim.jpg]

The rim stands out starkly against the southern view from the City of Gunnison. I took this photo below of the crater rim from the highway near the Gunnison airport. You can see how the road turns left far off in the distance as it starts to curve around the remnant rim.

[attachment=3140:Airport_View.JPG]

Once I started finding geologic evidence of impact, I reviewed as much reference material as I could. I was shocked to learn that there never had been anyone looking at impact as the possible cause for the multiple ring dike structure known locally as Hartman Rocks. Several geologists had studied that area over the years and written various papers that suggested volcanic activity or plate tectonic deformation as the cause. My sampling indicated clearly it was formed by hyper-velocity impact but my theory was not well accepted at first.

Of course, I quickly staked mining claims and filed them with the Gunnison County Clerk and Recorder along with the BLM Colorado State Office in order to protect my interests in the gem quality tektite discovery. Under advice from the company's attorney, we subsequently filed for a registered trademark to futher protect the tektite find.

When I recently provided rough specimens to CP, the ones sent were only low grade in order to "experiment" to see if they would even be workable. CP has done an outstanding job on the first run with that poor material. It amazed me to see what they had done with rock that wasn't too pleasant to look at. I would highly recommend them for lapidary/jewelry work.

It was Dan and Denise that first noticed the metal in matrix. They certainly deserve credit for that discovery. Until they had cut into the material with the diamond saw, it had remained hidden from view. The metal is small fragments of the impactor that were sealed in the tektite/matrix when the debris cloud settled back into the crater. Being so dry and impervious, the tektite provided a safe environment to preserve the metal grains. Meteorites usually waste away through rusting and would not be expected to survive for nearly 1/3 of a billion years. I was surprised to hear from CP about the metal grains and I am still very excited about discovering what their composition is.

Sincerely,

ASTROBLEME