How to recognize a real moldavite?
Do you love moldavites, have you heard that they can be replaced by synthetic products, and in connection with this you have wondered how to recognize moldavites, the real, natural one? Moldavites were already known in the Early and Late Stone Age (approximately 3 million years BC - 4th millennium BC). They were used for the production of tools as well as jewelry and cultural objects.
Currently, the moldavite is a sought-after tektite, especially unground, due to its color, shape and specific surface, which is amplified by only a few known sites. Strong furrowing of the moldavites, so-called sculpture, depends on the length of water transport. Of the non-flooded layers, the moldavites have a preserved surface, while of the secondary, Quaternary deposits, the moldavites are sanded, rounded and matte.
Tektites are essentially silicate glasses and differ from artificial glasses in their high content of silica and alumina. The age of moldavites is estimated at 14.8 million years. The original rock for their formation is a rock with a high content of silica and free quartz, which was suddenly melted under low oxygen content, in a state of weightlessness, with a high vacuum, at a temperature of at least 1,400 degrees. C.
You can read more about the moldavite itself or its deposits in the articles Vltavín - meaning, effects and properties and Vltavín - tektit with an unmistakable color.
Artificial moldavites have a high gloss, unlike natural moldavites, which are very sharp. Unlike other natural glasses (eg obsidians), they are relatively homogeneous. The absence of crystalline inclusions demonstrates the high temperature during their formation and at the same time rapid solidification. A common amorphous inclusion is lechatelierite, which occurs in varying amounts in virtually every moldavite. It is an amorphous natural quartz glass (silica), a mineraloid, very resistant to physical influences. The inclusions have different shapes and their size rarely exceeds 1.5 mm. A typical property of lechatelierite is its very low refractive index (1.458), for comparison the refractive index of the moldavite is 1.48 to 1.54.
Identification of lechatelierite is one of the proven methods of authenticity of moldavites.
Another method for the detection of true moldavites is absorption spectrometry (the principle is the absorption of light of different wavelengths of the spectrum, or Raman spectrometry, the principle of which is to measure the energy difference of the so-called vibrational levels of the molecule.
An example of a moldavite certificate of authenticity can be found here.
She wrote the article for you on February 26, 2022: Mgr. Radka Brichcínová
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