This light yellow, honey colored gem is what is known as Libyan Desert Glass. It's found in the eastern portion of the Sahara, in Libya and Egypt and is 29 million years old. It has been knapped into stone tools and used as decorative jewelry for thousands of years, like with King Tutankhamun's pectoral (breastplate) decoration as the most notable example. It's a bit of a mystery, because it is believed to have formed from the extreme heat of a meteor impact, but no crater has been found that connects to these gems to date. It was once thought that they might have formed from a meteor air blast, creating the glass similarly to how trinitite formed from the Trinity nuclear test, but this was debunked when traces of a rare mineral called reidite was found in the composition of Libyan desert glass, confirming it was the result of an impact site, rather than an air blast. The mystery of the impact site responsible for creating these rare desert gems continues!
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