[meteorite-list] Meteorite Collecting Ban

From: Starbits_at_aol.com <Starbits_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:16:31 2004
Message-ID: <5B6F01FD.428703DA.00848CE4_at_aol.com>

Jeff Grossman wrote:

<70% of all known meteorites are Antarctic
  20% of all known meteorites have been collected
  commercially.
  The remaining 10% include all the falls and sporadic
  finds throughout history.>

   I respectfully disagree. The naming conventions
tilt those numbers significantly toward the antarctic
meteorites.
   In antarctic collecting every individual is given
its own designation unless it is a fragment of a
closely associated stone. All of these individuals are
eventually classified even if 80% of a collection
year are obviously related L5s.
   If every individual coming out of NWA were given
its own designation the numbers would completely
dwarf the antarctica numbers. In most cases a single
stone is classified as representative of itself
and possibly hundreds of other similar stones.
NWA 801 CR and NWA 869 L5 are examples that come
to mind.
   In addition while all the antarctic meteorites
will eventually be classified this is not even
close to being the case for hot desert meteorites.
Due to lack of instrument time, money, and priorities
on rarer meteorite types, many, if not most, ordinary
chondrites from NWA will never be classified. That
is not a criticism, just reality. Those NWA meteorites
that are classified are predominantly the rarer types.
   A much more realistic determination would be a
comparison of different rare types of meteorites. The
mars compendium for instance lists 11 hot desert, 10
antarctic, and 7 other mars meteorites for a ratio of
39:36:25 vs the ratio above of 20:70:10. It would
be interesting to see how the other rare meteorite
types compare. Bernd?
   I don't know those comparisons but would guess
the results would be closer to the mars ratios than
the named classification ratio.
   Another comparison would be total mass. We know
that NWA 869 has been estimated at 1500-2000kg alone.
What is the mass of all the antartic meteorites?

Eric Olson
http://www.star-bits.com
Received on Fri 08 Aug 2003 01:30:35 PM PDT