NorthSlope_Alaska
Greenie
- Apr 16, 2009
- 14
- 0
Okay and the the answer is.
First off Craig ran a X-ray fluorescence (XRF) on the material and it looks like I discovered a new rock in Washington State. Here are his findings.
Hi Joel,
I'm all finished up with the XRF analysis of the Parke Creek samples and it looks like you've found a brand-new source - it's clearly a different geochemical type than the nearby Stray Gulch material. See the attached PDF for a copy of the analytical results and a scatterplot that illustrates the differences between the two sources. BTW, the reason that I can tell that these are a tachylyte (basaltic composition) rather the more typical rhyolitic composition of most obsidians are the very elevated quantities of Ti (titanium) and Fe2O3 (Iron). For obsidian, the typical numbers would be more like 1000 ppm for Ti and 1-2 percent for Fe.
Thanks again for sending these and I'kl be sure to give you credit if I ever publish the results somewhere. For now, your new source will be immortalized at: <http://www.sourcecatalog.com/wa/s_wa.html>!
Cheers,
Craig
The PDF will be on my website http://www.alaskanartifacts.com/BlueObsidian/ParkeCreekXRFResults.pdf
I will have more pictures there also
First off Craig ran a X-ray fluorescence (XRF) on the material and it looks like I discovered a new rock in Washington State. Here are his findings.
Hi Joel,
I'm all finished up with the XRF analysis of the Parke Creek samples and it looks like you've found a brand-new source - it's clearly a different geochemical type than the nearby Stray Gulch material. See the attached PDF for a copy of the analytical results and a scatterplot that illustrates the differences between the two sources. BTW, the reason that I can tell that these are a tachylyte (basaltic composition) rather the more typical rhyolitic composition of most obsidians are the very elevated quantities of Ti (titanium) and Fe2O3 (Iron). For obsidian, the typical numbers would be more like 1000 ppm for Ti and 1-2 percent for Fe.
Thanks again for sending these and I'kl be sure to give you credit if I ever publish the results somewhere. For now, your new source will be immortalized at: <http://www.sourcecatalog.com/wa/s_wa.html>!
Cheers,
Craig
The PDF will be on my website http://www.alaskanartifacts.com/BlueObsidian/ParkeCreekXRFResults.pdf
I will have more pictures there also
