Pele's Tears Identification Guide
How to identify Pele's tears, small teardrop-shaped basaltic glass droplets, by their shape, glassy luster, and how they differ from obsidian and Pele's hair.
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What Pele's Tears Look Like
Pele's tears are small droplets of basaltic volcanic glass — black, dark brown, or greenish — that solidified in flight when molten lava was flung from fire fountains and lava splashes. They are typically teardrop, spherical, dumbbell, or button-shaped, just millimeters to a couple of centimeters across, with a smooth glassy surface. They are the droplet counterpart to the threadlike Pele's hair and often have a fine glass tail or are attached to a strand.
Quick visual cues
- Small, smooth black/brown glass droplets, often teardrop-shaped
- Glassy (vitreous) luster, sometimes with a frozen tail
- Aerodynamic forms: spheres, drops, dumbbells
- Frequently found alongside Pele's hair
Step-by-Step Field ID Checklist
- Look at the shape: smooth aerodynamic droplets frozen in flight are the giveaway.
- Confirm glassy luster and conchoidal fracture on any broken surface.
- Test hardness: basaltic glass is ~5-6 Mohs; it scratches with quartz.
- Check for a tail or strand: many tears trail a thin filament of Pele's hair.
- Heft: small but relatively dense glass beads.
- Context: found near basaltic vents, downwind of lava fountains.
Key Diagnostic Tests
- Composition: basaltic (mafic) volcanic glass.
- Mohs hardness: ~5-6.
- Cleavage/Fracture: none / conchoidal.
- Luster: vitreous, often glossy.
- Specific gravity: ~2.7-3.0 (denser than felsic obsidian).
- No acid reaction; non-crystalline (amorphous).
Common Look-Alikes and How to Tell Them Apart
- Apache tears (obsidian): felsic rhyolitic glass, translucent brownish at edges, larger rounded nodules from perlite; Pele's tears are basaltic, smaller, and shaped by flight.
- Pele's hair: the thread form of the same glass; tears are the droplets and the two co-occur.
- Volcanic bombs/lapilli: much larger pyroclasts; Pele's tears are tiny glassy droplets.
- Tektites/microtektites: impact glass, often higher-silica and found far from volcanoes; Pele's tears are clearly volcanic in origin and setting.
- Slag droplets (industrial): found near furnaces, often with vesicles and unnatural inclusions.
The defining features are small aerodynamic basaltic-glass droplets with conchoidal fracture found at basaltic volcanoes, distinct from rhyolitic Apache tears and from impact glass.
Where Pele's Tears Are Found
Like Pele's hair, Pele's tears form at vigorous basaltic eruptions — classically Kilauea, Hawaii, and also at Iceland, Masaya (Nicaragua), Erta Ale (Ethiopia), and other lava-lake or fire-fountain volcanoes. They accumulate downwind of vents and in nearby cracks and vegetation.
Frequently asked questions
How can you tell if it's a Pele's tear?
Pele's tears are small, smooth black-to-brown teardrop or spherical glass droplets of basaltic composition found near basaltic volcanoes, with a glassy luster and conchoidal fracture, often trailing a thin glass strand.
What do Pele's tears look like?
They look like tiny shiny black or dark brown glass beads shaped like teardrops, spheres, or dumbbells, frozen in flight from splashing lava.
Pele's tears vs Apache tears — what's the difference?
Apache tears are rhyolitic obsidian nodules that are translucent at the edges, while Pele's tears are basaltic glass droplets shaped aerodynamically during eruption and are typically smaller.
Are Pele's tears the same as Pele's hair?
They are the same basaltic glass formed in the same eruptions — tears are the droplets and hair is the threads — and they frequently occur together.