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Re: Nuveo Mercurio B?
Martin,
Thanks for the excellent summary, but rather sad story,
on the Reid 013/Window Butte/Kent/Nova meteorite issue. This correlates with
what I've observed. I didn't realize Window Butte has been dropped as the
fall location.
Martin Horejsi writes:
>For those just joining, the Reid 013 is a Brachinite, a very rare class of
>achondrite. Frank posted information about this class of meteorite a while
>back.
>From what I understand, meteorite in question (now called Reid 013) was
>found in Australia, and offered for sale to US meteorite dealers.
>The dealer who responded with least amount of time for analysis was sent
>the specimen ("probably" without an export permit from the Australian
>government). After a preliminary analysis (a visual inspection, as I
>understand it), the classification of ureilite was given to the specimen.
>Since it was (probably) exported without proper papers, an Australian name
>for a new, rare meteorite would surely attract attention. Therefore,
>(again, as I understand it) the dealer proposed the name of Kent, Texas for
>this new find. This name would later be changed (by the dealer?) to Window
>Butte, Utah.
I've seen Window Butte surface about 2 years ago from one particular
dealer, and I haven't come across any other dealer selling it. He was
advertising it as a new brachinite, and selling it at some outrageous
price at something like $1000/gram if I remember correctly. I have never
seen anyone selling any Kent meteorites.
>After the naming and renaming of the specimen, there was not any
>documentation about the find with anyone except the dealer who had the
>specimen in possession. And, as it turned out, the rare (and expensive)
>ureilite happened to be an even more rare (and even more expensive)
>brachinite. Those who found it in Australia realized, upon hearing of its
true classification, that they should have been paid quite a bit more money
(as much as $20,000 more) for this super-rare specimen. They were angry,
and felt cheated (even though they may have violated the law to make money).
>For most of those involved, the issue came to rest when the Australian
>location was either roughly identified by the exporters, or the specimen
>was paired with another specimen with a known location. The name Reid 013
>was given to the specimen, and the Window Butte, Utah name was dropped as a
>realistic location. To my knowledge, the Texas location never materialized
>in either name or specimen. In the end, it appears that "almost" all of
>the meteorite community has adopted the Reid 013 name for the specimen.
About a year ago, I came across another dealer selling a yet-to-be-named
brachinite from Australia. He said it was found in the same area as
Reid 013, but it was not Reid 013. This struck me as very odd.
I knew it was possible for strewn fields from two different
meteorite falls to overlap, but the odds of two extremely rare
brachinites falling near each other is simply astronomical.
So, apparently both of these meteorites were Reid 013, and according
your story, were probably illegally exported from Australia. It really saddens
me to see this kind of activity going on. It looks like a case of
a few bad apples which makes the other 99% honest dealers
look bad. It there anything we can do about it?
Ron Baalke