[meteorite-list] Elma material - the "problem" if it ISN'T a meteorite

From: Robert Verish <bolidechaser_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:16:36 2004
Message-ID: <20030826224132.91670.qmail_at_web80512.mail.yahoo.com>

Still asking:

Is this material a meteorite, or is it not?

If it turns out that this material is NOT
meteorite-related, then why have us all hold our
breath? Why build up anticipation and risk a greater
disappointment by announcing it later?

If THIS is NOT a meteorite, this won't be so much of a
"problem", because we have discussions about
meteor-wrongs on this List all the time. But allow me
to explain why the mention of "getting this
meteor-wrong classified" has raised some people's ire.
 

There are some of us who have been waiting a very long
time for classifications for real meteorite finds that
we have turned in to various institutions. In my
case, some of my specimens have been waiting over two
years! Even the thought that I might be waiting
another month or so for my classifications, because of
the possibility that these meteor-wrongs are holding
it up, doesn't sit well with me. Some others have
been more vocal about this.

You may ask, "If you've been waiting this long, what's
a few more months?" Well, here is an example why.
It turns out that my Mud Dry Lake meteorite was
finally classified as being a H3.8 - but that
important piece of information was held back from me
"until everyone else's classifications were
completed", so as not to displease any meteorite
dealers. The consequence of this delay was that I had
to write last months MeteoriteTimes.com article based
on the preliminary estimate of it being L4. That's
what the difference of a month or two meant to me.

But GET THIS! No one has done anything "wrong" here.
In fact, everyone has been trying to do the "right
thing". I'm certainly not pointing fingers; I'm just
explaining the "facts of life" as they exist today.
But the point of all of this is that it all of these
present "problems" derive from one, singular
action/decision that occurred about 2 years ago...

... and you've heard me say this before:
Quote -
But, in just the past two years, during my attempts to
get meteorites classified, I've seen a number of
problems arising. And I point to NASA's withdrawal of
funds for the classifying of non-Antarctic meteorites
(and the docile acceptance of this situation by
meteoriticists) as the single source for all of these
"problems".
- Unquote

Bob V.



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Received on Tue 26 Aug 2003 06:41:32 PM PDT