[meteorite-list] Barringer Meteor $$$$

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:37 2004
Message-ID: <20030508231548.83544.qmail_at_web12707.mail.yahoo.com>

--- MeteorHntr_at_aol.com wrote:
> Hello steve_schoner_at_yahoo.com,
>
> In reference to your comment:
>
> è "Why is this crater not owned by the Government
> and
> è preserved under the National Park Service?
>
> Why? Maybe because they pay a lot of sales,
> property and income taxes to
> their county and state governments.
>
> I would never accuse any one of paying officials
> under the table, yet it is
> funny how alleged meteorite poachers are treated up
> there when caught. I
> call them "alleged meteorite poachers" since I don't
> think anyone has EVER
> been convicted of hunting or removing meteorites
> from the Crater area.
> Charges are made, but they always seem to get
> mysteriously dropped before the
> cases get to court. As Schoner would say "Humm...."
>
> Oh, I think the Barringer's pay off (excuse me, I
> meant to day "donate" to)
> the Meteoritical Society a couple of thousand
> dollars a year don't they?
>
> You know, my guess is that the real reason that the
> crater makes, what over
> 1,000,000 visitors a year times $14 each minus their
> huge (couple hundred
> thousand dollar) overhead expenses plus gift shop
> revenues is because there
> hasn't been a big enough stink made to the right
> government officials.
>
> It seems that Schoner in the past has done a bit of
> effort, but maybe the
> people who read his letters just don't care enough
> to do something about it.
> And if they are complaining to local politicians who
> might have personal
> agendas to do favors for the Barringers, then those
> are not the politicians
> one should be talking to. Maybe contacting a
> non-incumbant person running
> for that particular congress seat BEFORE they get
> elected might be worth
> while.
>
> Maybe those of us on the list that feel passionate
> about this could all right
> our respective congressmen and women. If there was
> actually a little bit of
> money that could be raised, a well placed billboard
> in the region (like on
> that long road up to the Crater) might be cost
> efficient. Maybe with a
> website "www.FreeTheCrater.com" printed on it.
>
> Not that Geoff Notkin would want to do anything in
> the way of a "write your
> congressman" campaign (I would never want to commit
> him to such a project
> without him volunteering himself) but if he did,
> there is no one in the world
> that I have ever met that has been able to do 1/10
> of what he has been able
> to do in the past when it comes to getting the
> written complaint letters to
> the right people to get amazing things changed.
>
> Anyway, just my 2 grams of shale oxides worth...
>
> Steve
>

Steve,

Everything you have said is right on the money (pun
intended).

Something needs to be done, and it's time that
Congress re-examines the 1872 Mining Act, possibly
eliminating it altogether or at least amending it to
give the "people" of this so called "land of the free"
the right to determine whether a site warrants
protection beyond what the 1872 Mining Act provides.
(Which is no protection at all)

That Meteor Crater is a Natural Treasure, there can be
no doubt.

It was instrumental in bringing to the attention of
scientists world wide that asteroids do strike the
earth. And in subsequent research it provided insight
into the actual processes involved. Dr. Shoemaker
earned his PhD in studying the crater before his later
work at USGS. Then USGS sent teams of astronaughts
out there to study the crater so that they would have
a better understanding of what they would see on the
moon.

The crater has a history, both in the Old West and the
New, and it is of utmost scientific importance in that
it is the most recent crater of size on the earth.

All this said, what is being done with it?

Talk about preservation?

Bar T Bar had the audacity to create a "secondary"
crater a short distance away from the south side of
the real crater to water cows.

The Park Service or any other overseeing government
agency would never allow that. As it is now it
compromises the stratigraphy of the crater, and also
ruins its visual appeal. Also, with regards to
scientific research, government controls are by far
better that the rigor maroe that Bar-T-Bar-Meteor
Crater Enterprises put me through. Ten years of red
tape, demands that I approach institutions, and
individuals of renown to gain their support, all with
the intention that I would give up and go away. But
all the while... "poachers" whoever they are, go out
and pick specimens up and sell them "under the table."
The government would never allow these abuses to go on
if they had not given the "mining rights" away.

And the court cases that they inflict on the
"poachers" that they have arrested... You are right
on! Not one of these has ever made it to court. It
legal harassment. They have done it time and time
again, but do not take even one case all the way.
Just the threat is enough, and legal costs to keep
un-authorized persons at bay, and keep them from
"mining" meteorites from public lands surrounding the
crater.

There is nothing to be mined there. There is no load
of meteorites in the crater or outside of it. Just
individual fragments and vapor products scattered far
and wide across the desert. And in the history of the
crater, Dr. Nininger proved it when he found metallic
sphereoids confirming that Dr. Moulton's previous
prediction that the meteorite was vaporized on impact.
 Dr. Shoemaker in his PhD. thesis elaborated on the
processes of crater formation expanding the process to
all major cratering events, showing exactly how the
process unfolded to produce what is seen in impact
craters

Meteor Crater is an archetype for all cratering events
world wide. The popular, and scientific history of
the site is secure, and it is certainly more than just
a hole in the ground.

It is not a "mine" for meteorite "resources," and
never will be.

It is a historic, scientific National Treasure, as it
should be; rather than a site to mine people's
pockets, as it now is.

$10 to $20 per/person ?

See any National Park for much less, and get a great
amount of correct interpretation of the site as well.


Steve Schoner
http://www.geocities.com/meteorite_identification



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Received on Thu 08 May 2003 07:15:48 PM PDT