Obsidian Fracture Resulting from Forest Fire Exposure

Author(s): Anastasia Steffen

Year: 2023

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Fire fractures in obsidian nodules and artifacts have been observed following several large forest fires at quarries, other archaeological sites, and geological deposits in the Jemez Mountains of north-central New Mexico. This presentation describes the characteristics of thermal fractures observed in this brittle material and discusses the heating contexts in which this fire effect occurs, including consideration of heating experiments conducted as part of the ArcBurn project.

Cite this Record

Obsidian Fracture Resulting from Forest Fire Exposure. Anastasia Steffen. Presented at The 88th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2023 ( tDAR id: 473193)

Spatial Coverage

min long: -124.365; min lat: 25.958 ; max long: -93.428; max lat: 41.902 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35890.0