[meteorite-list] Meteorite Collecting Ban

From: mark ford <markf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:16:31 2004
Message-ID: <6CE3EEEFE92F4B4085B0E086B2941B31014322_at_s-southern01.s-southern.com>

Re: collecting Ban.

These scientists/time wasters that support a collecting ban would do
well to sit down and think about their actions...

Firstly >90% of all meteorites are found by 'collectors/hunters' (or
dealers to collectors). Do these scientists really want to loose these
thousands and thousands of meteorites every year? Who would find them if
they banned collecting? - they would just lie in the ground rusting
away, or get built on by an ever expanding world.

So that would leave the odd 4 man scientific party every year to the
Antarctic? Yeah right get real, do they really believe that if the
supply of meteorites 'dried up' the government would keep funding labs
and research programs? No they would cut back funds!

In any case as far as I know every meteorite that has been classified
has had a sample donated to science.

FACT : Science gets more meteorites due to collecting than it ever would
without it! So my message to those that want it banned - do something
useful with your time!

What they should be doing is encouraging people to get stuff classified
and invest in more labs so that the classification is easier and happens
quicker!

However - It is a shame that many many meteorites never get classified,
one has to wonder what undiscovered revelations are sitting in our
collections having never been seen by anyone 'in Authority', but hey
that's life!


Just My 2 quids worth!


Mark Ford
Received on Fri 08 Aug 2003 03:52:19 AM PDT