[meteorite-list] List behavior

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:44:13 2004
Message-ID: <LAW2-F141gixKVVgxAr0000495d_at_hotmail.com>

As someone who has contributed over $100,000 into the saharan economy in the
past year and so have a vested (And conflict of) interest in the sahara
right now I thought that I would respond to gregorys email. Anybody who has
ideas as to preserve science and keep records of what is going on right now
in this situation of major historical significance in meteorite history
should contribute to this list. More ideas are better. We are wittnessing
history right now. Thousands of people are searching the sahara looking for
meteorites with the effect that meteorites have become affordable to
anybody. This affordability is creating a generation of new collectors to
generate a successful long term hobby.
This situation of course is not going over all that very well with some
short sighted dealers like the paulistons who have all of a sudden
discovered competation and dont particularly like it very much.
If science supported the paulistons and were deprived of the meteorites the
meteorites would still be sitting in the desert right now (Like the SNCs,
Lunars and other types of rare meteorites that sit in the hot australian
desert because the local aboriginies of australia have had the government
take away their economic benefit to search and the canadian meteorites that
sit in farmers fields since farmers have had the canadian government steal
their economic interest in keeping an eye out for them) then scientific
knowledge would be lost - thanks to the paulistons and their comunistic
ideas of only allowing meteorite hunters that conform to their way of
thinking.
My personal feelings that science has not been lost because science has been
allowed to study several lunars, SNCs and other rare meteorites instead of
only allowing camels to study them.
So why dont the nomads and fossil dealers keep records of where things are
being found when a proper name for one meteorite strewnfield would more than
pay for a GPS unit? The paulistons answered this question directly when they
said "It takes two years to get our stuff classified".
Fossil dealers in Morocco have a really bad reputation. Some people would
have them all in the catagory of con artists. This reputation predates the
meteorite rush and is mostly related to the selling of bondo trilobites and
their ability to restore fossils to the extent that it is hard to notice the
repairs without an expert knowledge. Well - let me make the sacreligious
comment and say that MOST MOROCCAN FOSSIL DEALERS ARE NOTHING MORE THAN
HONEST BUSINESSMEN. (Of course every group as their share of scumbags but
for the most part I find the fossil dealers to be honest and on the up and
up - even if you do have to be alert when dealing with them). Much of this
reputation have come from children selling bondo trilobites to tourists as
the real thing for a fraction (often less than 5%) of the cost that the
fossil dealers were selling their genuine fossils to tourists for in the
stores. Once the tourists get home and find that their super bargain
trilobite is nothing more than cast bondo they then get upset and called all
moroccans crooks. I have delt with a large number of moroccan fossil dealers
- in morocco, tucson and in Denver, and I have yet to have a very bad
experience. (Although dont take this as cart-blaunch advice to deal with any
moroccan - I am getting to know how to spot a con-job after all of my
dealings over there and maybe just got lucky in the learning process).
So why would a nomad (Or fossil dealer) care to bother keeping records of
what side of some line drawn on a map by humans that something from space
came from? It is not to make their stuff worth more. If the paulistons and
their properly kept records take two years to classify how long do you think
that the nomads would have to wait (Especially since they are considered
outcasts by almost everybody anyway).
When I talk to a fossil dealer (On a trust basis - the moroccans dont much
trust westerners either on the first meeting) they have one question that
comes up above all others. And that is "Can you get this classified". The
fossil dealers buy stuff from the nomads and keep what they think is good
material for some possible future time when they might be able to get it
classified and named and then dump the rest for 10 to 20 cents a gram (Or 50
cents minimun a gram if they drag it to Tucson or Denver). If nomads and
fossil dealers had the ability to get stuff classified in a reasonable time
you can be assured that location data would quickly be fortcoming. As it is
the nomads can usually get the data anyway. They know where they found
stuff.
If the paulistons were genuinely interested in saving the location data they
would be lobbying NASA and other governments to provide funding to hire
scientists to get meteorites classified (Maybe use some of the $28,000 a
kilo that they paid for antarctic stuff last winter - over 100 times what
they could have bought saharan material at. Maybe some scientists or private
company will start a for profit classification service soon. The
meteoritical society has done their best in being willing to name every
meteorite and therby keep track of it but without more funding they are
limited in what they can do. The meteoritical society has done their best at
preserving as much data as possible for a future time when they might get
more funding and from my own contacts with them I can assure you that the
meteoritical society would be open to new ideas that would help even more.
Of course - giving anybody the ability to get stuff classified faster would
not be in the paulistons best interest to happen. After all, the paulistons
efforts here has nothing to do with preserving science. What the paulistons
are doing is using "The scientific interest" arguement to drive everybody
else out of the sahara so that there wont be equally good 20 cent a gram
material hitting the collector market to compete with their $4 a gram stuff.
Once again THE PAULISTONS DONT OWN THE SAHARA. AND THEIR 3 YEARS OF VISITING
THE DESERT DONT GIVE THEM PRESIDENCE OVER THE NOMADS WHO HAVE OCCUPIED THE
LAND FOR 5000 YEARS. LAND THAT THE PAULISTONS ARE PLUNDERING AND GIVING
NOTHING IN RETURN TO THE PEOPLE WHO OWN IT WHEN THEY STEAL THE DESERTS
RESOURCES.
Sincerely
DEAN
PS.
A couple weeks ago the paulistons wrote that they will be at the meeting of
the meteoritical society this summer and will "Bring up these issues". I
wonder if somebody could enlighten us as to exactly what will happen at that
meeting and comment on if it is prudent during a meeting of scientists and
allow a businessman into the event who obviously has no interest in doing
anything but degrade the scientific effort (And actually destroy science)
and is at the meeting for no reason other than to promote his own personal
business interest to the detriment of all other competators and the
scientific community in general. Why is that one dealer allowed at the
scientific meeting anyway? Who decides who gets to go? Maybe somebody can
tell us exactly what will happen at this meeting.
>



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Received on Tue 19 Jun 2001 02:43:10 PM PDT