| Summary: | The following example deals with methods of determining major and trace elements in a particular special kind of natural glasses - tektites. Measurements were performed on seventeen samples. Two of them belonged to a group of Libyan desert glass and the remaining fifteen were originally from the Australasian tektite field. For these purposes, optical microscopy was used in the preparatory phase of study of the samples. The studied samples were prepared in the form of cross-sections. Microscopy was employed to ensure the correctness of the procedure for selecting appropriate samples and precise areas of cross-sections that are suitable for analysis. The main elements were determined by electron microanalysis. The values obtained in these measurements confirmed existing knowledge about the composition of tektites. The chemistry of Libyan desert glass corresponded to 98 weight percent of SiO2. In the Australian-Asian samples, this value was equal to 73 wt.%. The other major oxides include Al2O3, FeO, MgO, etc. The contents of these elements in the Libyan desert glass were determined in the range of 0.154 to 0.727 percent by weight. The Australasian tektites contained 0.598 to 0.875 wt.% of these elements. The most important data were obtained by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric (ICP-MS)...
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