[meteorite-list] Howardite Blow Out

From: Göran Axelsson <axelsson_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Sep 23 21:26:46 2004
Message-ID: <41537906.8030004_at_acc.umu.se>

This is some thoughts from a fresh collector, two months into a new hobby.

"Likely paired" or "Probably paired" is clear enough for every need. It
tells
you that someone have made a good guess at least but no scientific
examination on the pairing has been done. If it is rare material you
could probably get a lab to look at it eventually. The problem is what to
do until someone takes a look at the material. At that time it is probably
cut, sold and resold a number of times and noone will be able to know
which of the "Probably paired" pieces came from the examined individual.
A serial number that could be added to a meteorite without going
through the scientific evaluation would be valuable and provide a mean
of tracing and pairing samples at a later stage. I own 200+ NWA
meteorites, all unclassified and out of the first ten it was at least three
different meteorites as far as my eyes could help me.
As I wanted to do The Right Thing (tm) and get a serial number I started
to scan the web and ended up at the website of the Meteoritical Society.
It didn't take me long to realise that I would never get an NWA number
for my meteorites. That was a real dissapointment.

As I see the situation it is a real mess and it isn't getting better
with all
likely paired meteorites cut up in pieces. If one is found to be
something special it will be really hard to recover more material since
it would lie on shelfs with wrong labels. A serial number would make
it easy to locate materials from the same individual.

Since I think most collectors want to do the right thing and even do
some unpaid work I think that a database run by the Meteoritical
Society where you could register your meteorites online and get a
serial number for tracking purposes would be useful. Maybe it's
a totally mad idea or maybe it needs some work and something
workin would be the result.

Another thread tonight was which meteorites you should collect.
I'm into this because I feel there is scientific value in what the
meteorites could tell us and in that case I don't see why a Park
Forest should be so much better than an NWA. When I buy an
NWA it is a lottery, NWA 869 is a no win, a flight oriented
fresh one is a high price.
OK, I understand why there is sentimental value in some named
meteorites, I've spent two month with looking for the meteorite
that exploded here this summer. :-)

And a totally different thing, Chris, I'm looking for the article on
a Swedish meteorite with fossiles. I know in which publication
I read the article that declared it a meteowrong but I haven't
found it yet. I will find it sooner or later.

Well, that's a few loose thoughts from a tired Sweed.

Good night!

/G?ran


Rob Wesel wrote:

>OK, please allow me to change the description from PAIRED to "Likely
>Paired", as deemed acceptable in Mr. Grossman's email last week:
>
>" It is acceptable and routine, however, for people to make statements
>indicating that various numbered stones may be paired (although I would be
>cautious about believing such statements unless they appear in the Bulletin
>or other scientific publications)."
>
>I did, in fact, acquire these from Edwin Thompson and pieces have been
>donated to Cascadia Meteorite Lab. Edwin is out of town and I don't know if
>official pairing has been done, or will be, by Cascadia.
>
>It has been clearly, and rationally, discussed today that:
>
>1) There is always more material out there that gets trickled out through
>Berbers finding more or middlemen holding back.
>
>2) No lab is going to classify every piece that trickles out.
>
>3) NWA naming is going to be a mess for a very long time as supply exceeds
>demand. NWA 801, 859, 869, 1929, 1866, 1877.....
>
>
>Even with 1110 we run into the fact that only a few of them went through
>appropriate testing to prove a planetary origin, the rest were analyzed on
>sight.
>
>Sorry for the confusion in using "paired", likely paired it is. Not sorry
>for reopening the worms though, visual pairing is common practice in every
>other geographical location save for Antarctica and the fact that NWA, the
>most prolific meteorite source of our day, is the only area constrained by
>this convention leaves far more questions than answers. For now, if the
>NomCom is OK with "likely paired" then so am I and I should have used that
>wording from the start.
>
>Please note, that the material soon to be on my website is fully classified.
>
>
>
>Rob Wesel
>------------------
>We are the music makers...
>and we are the dreamers of the dreams.
>Willy Wonka, 1971
>
>
>
>
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Received on Thu 23 Sep 2004 09:31:50 PM PDT