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Disc‐, Plate‐, and Bowl ‐ Shaped Australites
Author(s) -
BAKER GEORGE
Publication year - 1963
Publication title -
meteoritics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1945-5100
pISSN - 0026-1114
DOI - 10.1111/j.1945-5100.1963.tb01402.x
Subject(s) - flange , geology , core (optical fiber) , volume (thermodynamics) , thin section , front (military) , geometry , mineralogy , physics , materials science , optics , composite material , mathematics , oceanography , quantum mechanics
The disc‐, plate‐, and bowl‐shaped australites are unique among the tektites and rare in the well‐preserved, well‐developed state. Those from the Port Campbell district of the south coast of western Victoria are the best‐preserved and more numerous of the less than 50 known from the Australian tektite‐strewn field. They are very thin, complete forms in which the central core portion is much reduced in volume relative to the secondarily developed circumferential flange, and in which there are some with virtually no central core, so that the form is essentially a “flying flange.” These forms are no doubt the thin remnants resulting from ablation by aerodynamical frictional heating of the smaller primary australite forms that traversed the earth's atmosphere with stable aerodynamic orientation at ultrasupersonic velocities.