[meteorite-list] What is "meteorite awareness" and how does it influence fall statistics?

From: minador <minador_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jun 18 01:43:01 2004
Message-ID: <00c601c454f6$a3897880$ea78480c_at_s0024741812>

Hi List,

What is meant by "meteorite awareness"? I was using it to mean that people
are familiar with the look, feel, etc. of meteorites. Until I started
collecting and handling meteorites, I had a hard time distinguishing them
from just looking at photos. And I had a hard time with meteorwrongs. Now
that I'm more "meteorite aware", I'm pretty confident in identifying
chondrites (at least fairly un-weathered ones - irons can still be pretty
problematic for me).

That being said, I suppose that increased "meteorite awareness" might not
have much of an effect on falls or finds. Regarding falls, I think if
people witness a fall, they're highly likely to report it even if they don't
know what meteorites look like (or understand the concept of a meteorite).
Maybe there would be less false reports.

Regarding finds, I think the effect of more "meteorite awareness" would be
less meteorwrongs being sent to labs (over the years my dad and I sent a few
to ASU). It wouldn't necessarily be more being found since people tend to
err on the side of caution and send every strange thing the find to experts.

Maybe the reason that increased population density doesn't translate into
more fall observations could be that the increases in population tend to be
confined to urban areas. In this instance more witnesses might not have
much of an effect. A fall like Park Forest would have probably been
discovered even if it was a smaller urban area. There are still huge areas
that are relatively unpopulated even though there are much more people
around today. In fact I believe that since the Great Depression, there is a
lower population density in rural areas (in the U.S.). People tend to bunch
up in urban areas, and there are less farmers, logger and ranchers out there
observing subtle changes that would escape the transient hiker, explorers,
etc. I could be quite wrong on this though, so I'd like to hear more. I'm
not denying increased urbanization, but considering that the Western U.S is
~80% public lands, the private areas being developed do not translate to
much more "populated land area".

I don't want to get too far from Tracy's question though. They got a bet on
the line!

Have a great night everyone (or day to those in merry old Europe and
beyond!)

Mark Bowling

J?rn wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "J?rn Koblitz" <koblitz_at_microfab.de>
To: <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>; <markf@ssl.gb.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 1:59 AM
Subject: WG: [meteorite-list] Meteorite Fall Rates


> If 'increasing meteorite awareness' would result in a net
> increase then
> why isn't that reflected in the figures?

I think, that "meteorite awareness" will not really influence the
statistics. The billions of people, mainly those living in highly populated
areas with "low meteorite awareness" like China or India do highly influence
the fall statistics (contrary to the find (NOT observed falls) statistics
which is highly influenced by meteorite awareness).
Received on Fri 18 Jun 2004 01:38:53 AM PDT