Fortunately, they switched off the noisy machines as Eleno led us to a table covered with objects representing the most recent output of the workshop. “This is my partner Manuel,” said Eleno over the din, taking us to a big man in bib overalls who was pushing a huge chunk of obsidian into a howling buzz saw - with his bare hands. The air was filled with dust and the roar of spinning grindstones. He led my wife Susy and me into a cinderblock yard partially covered by a tin roof. I confess that I, too, had very little interest in obsidian until the day I walked into Don Eleno’s obsidian workshop in the sleepy village of Navajas, located 30 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara.ĭon Eleno was a little man wearing a sombrero and a warm smile that radiated serenity. Although most obsidian is black, a variety of colors can be found in the vast deposits of Jalisco © John Pint, 2009 The many colors of obsidian As a result, the Tequila-Colli axis became one of the world’s greatest ancient mining zones for this natural glass, providing the pre-Columbian inhabitants of what is now western Mexico with a priceless “gift of the gods,” which dramatically shaped their destiny.Ĭuriously, most of the people living in the Guadalajara area today have never seen an obsidian mine and few would recognize a piece of obsidian lying at their feet even though the ground is strewn with it for at least 100 kilometers west of the city.
Less than 90,000 years ago more lava came forth from the Colli area, where today we find the Primavera Forest. West Mexico’s obsidian probably began as lava oozing out of cracks in the side of Tequila Volcano several million years ago, well after the volcano’s more dramatic eruptions into the air. Obsidian forms when lava cools quickly or is degassed in other ways. Glass will loose its edge on about anything.The third-largest deposits of obsidian in the world are found west of the city of Guadalajara and are superseded only by the deposits of Africa’s Rift Valley and the Oregon Plateau. There's also nothing it cant cut, while glass which can be sharper, is only a 5.5 on this scale to 10 (diamond). To cut glass, jewels or just anything you want a precise cut on, you use diamond because it will keep its edge the longest, seeing as its the hardest. Now days, we harvest non jewler grade diamonds and artificial diamonds to COAT blades with. If mine is harder, your just going to blunt your edge. If your mineral is harder on Mohs scale than mine, you can cut mine. look up Mohs hardness scale) that gives them their notoriety. As far as the famed diamond blades are concerned, its their HARDNESS (mineralogical term. Now days they are used in ocular surgeries when lasers are not available. We have had the sharpest knives on earth since before we could write. Obsidian, specifically, has been used for a very long time in the medical profession and was the prized tip for spears. Im not liable when you get cut or worse, you were warned. Some man made glass is specifically designed NOT to have these edges, so get a non shatter proof glass. Break a peace of glass and see how easy it is for that glass to cut you. These blades are actually MORE durable AND SHARPER than a diamond blade. The concoidal cleavage means a smooth cutting surface, and the amorphous, but bonded structure, means that you can get down to a molecule thick. If you take some obsidian and knap off two sides, you can get the two sides to be around 33 degrees or even less depending on how fast the glass cooled and what minerals it is made up of. This actually works to a glass knifes advantage.
It does however have conchoidal cleavage, though its comparatively weak. Glasses being amorphous, do not have any cleavage so easy to shatter along. The repulsion of each carbon atom to each next will keep you from getting a stable edge. The two sides of the blade will always want to be 90 degrees from each other, but you may be able to grind it down to around 45. If the atoms are jolted just slightly out of place, the atomic repulsion will do the rest and your diamond will cleave.)Ģ. It's easier to break in two than a piece of glass the same size. This means that the edge will be flat because a large number of layers will just slog off of the cutting edge.(if you have a big diamond in your/your spouse's ring, you will want to be careful not to knock it on anything hard. Check out the geology related cleavage article if you want to know more) in all 3 dimensions.
They have distinct 90 degree cleavage (look it up if you think breasts. When talking about the sharpness measured in atomic widths, you have to look at the molecular structure.ĭiamonds are cubic.