[meteorite-list] Hot Desert Meteorites

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:05 2004
Message-ID: <3C6E4A52.181F46B3_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Luc a écrit:

> ... and about the NWA, those returned recently from Marocco
> say that the quantity they saw in not so bigger that before.


Bonjour Luc, Hello List,

I was just reading Christian Pinter's article about the 2001 Mineral and
Gem Show in Munic in Meteorite, Feb 2002, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 38-39,
when your post arrived here. There are three remarks in Christian's
article that I would like to share with all of us:

1. Bruno:

"But today there is only one tenth of what
had been found in Morocco two years ago."

2. Ahmed Pani:

"There is really less material coming from the Sahara now."

3. Erich Haiderer:

"There is still enough out there for decades to come."

> For me there are not good or bad meteorites, there are well documented or
> poorly documented meteorites, well preserved or weathered meteorites, nice
> or bad looking meteorites and scientifically important or not meteorites, with
> all the intermediate states.

I absolutely agree with the above words! Very often conversations about
our love for meteorites oscillate between how exotic, common, or
historical they are, and, on the other hand we complain (!) about the
decreasing prices and monetary values of our Hot Desert meteorites. One
list member wrote to me in a private mail that prices for historical
falls like - say, Juvinas, Steinbach, etc. - will never decrease as much
as the prices for those classified or unclassified NWAs. Again our views
are shifting towards the financial investigation and away from our
enthusiasm for those "heavenly messengers". A lunar is a lunar, a
Martian is a Martian. I for my part collect meteorites because I love
them, not because I want to investigate and make profits - after all I
am not a dealer but a collector.

When we started collecting these asteroidal "crumbs" many years ago, we
said: "Oh, if I only had a eucrite in my collection!" Now some of us
will say: "A eucrite would be OK ... what? It's a NWA! ... and there are
no coordinates, no total weight, ... ah, well I think I had better buy a
Stannern eucrite. Thus I won't lose my money!

And now a quick glance at Stannern in my database:

Stannern: brecciated; monomict; noncumulate

And, as a comparison, one of those Hot Desert meteorites:

Sahara 98110: brecciated; monomict

Any difference? OK, I know the Sahara 98110 does have coordinates which
the Labennes will disclose at a later time, but do coordinates make a
eucrite a eucrite? A scientifical approach to this problem would be
different (see my post re: "NWA meteorites blessing or omen? / Wed, 13
Feb 2002) but, again, I am not a meteoriticist, I am a collector!

Best wishes,

Bernd
Received on Sat 16 Feb 2002 07:02:26 AM PST