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Repost: Heze/Juancheng meteorite

I'm reposting this, since it got "digested" and may not have been
seen.  Sorry for bothering everybody who already saw it.
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Many of you readers of this group know about the 1997 February fall
of a meteorite in Shandong Province, China.  The name of this meteorite
that is in wide circulation is "Heze."  However, the Nomenclature
Committee of the Meteoritical Society has decided that the official
name for this fall will henceforth be "Juancheng."  

There were several good reasons for making a decision that could
obviously cause some confusion among museums and collectors.

1) The name "Juancheng" was put forward by scholars at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou, one of the institutions
that normally takes responsibility for Chinese meteorite nomenclature.

2) The name "Heze" is already in use, as a synonym for another
nearby meteorite, "Hotse," which fell in 1956.  I'm not 100% certain,
but I'd guess that "Heze" is simply the Pinyin spelling of "Hotse."
Anyway, an entry for "Heze" already appears in the Catalogue of 
Meteorites, so this name cannot be used for a new meteorite.

So, we encourage all of you who have some of this meteorite in
your possession to now switch to the official name.


Jeff Grossman
Editor, Meteoritical Bulletin
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