[meteorite-list] Total Number of Meteorites?

From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Dec 7 14:26:42 2005
Message-ID: <27b.188207f.30c8916b_at_aol.com>

Hola Martin.

Your post was a passionate work of art, I think you might like to be a
defence lawyer if you ever got bored of all the of all of this due to the pathetic
lethargy out there in our world. Too bad such passion is not easily valued on
eBay or communicated electronically. Those perceptions are not my fault, nor
yours or anyone's here. They are just a reflection of "To each his own". On
the bright side during these dark times, this has made it possible for many of
us to take part in the current "convivio" (English word, somebody, please).
If everyone should think,"A meteorite is a girl's best friend" the situation
might improve somewhat for your viewpoint. Currently, based on rarity, the
galaxy meteorite (remember that "junk" "fake" material) is much much more rare
than diamonds and gold and real meteorites. So by an argument of rareness
alone, it, like works of art, should be sold at Christie's for millions, anything
else would be a big crime.

The passion with which your write is something I share, so I won't argue with
it, just clarify two points:

First you said that the majority of meteorites are properly weighed and
accounted for as the are from hot deserts and Antarctica. Better you say the
majority of stones for clarity, rather than get caught in the technical definition
of a of a random stone found and a complete fall meteorite found in the high
density continental meteorite farms. Yes of course it is easy to know the
weight of a stone. No in Antarctica one particular meteorite fall is practically
never vacuumed up andmuch remaines out there that hasn't fallen into a natural
trap and been delivered to the researchers on a blue-ice platter courtesy of
natural action.

Second, I am still confused as to why I would be needing to compare the
rarity of meteorites with industrial diamonds or galaxy meteoritical works of art,
for that matter.

Finally, and just to emphasize the second point, I think TKW is the most
misused term in meteoritics, but I will gladly agree with you that something can
be learned by taking it, as you have, and inflating it an order of magnitude
for dimensioning. I just still haven't put my finger on exactly what it is to
be learned, and I am usually the type that dervive great pleasure juggling
numbers even senselessly coming up with answers looking for problems to solve.

What needs absolutely no clarification is your passion and love for things
meteoritical, nor mine. That is what makes it special and priceless, like the
unique and fickle rose of the Little Prince, not because the greenhouses of
Colombia ship out roses en masse, but rather becaue he had classified his
particular rose as priceless.

Off traveling...back in a couple of days...
Saludos,
Doug



En un mensaje con fecha 12/07/2005 8:42:49 AM Mexico Standard Time,
altmann_at_meteorite-martin.de escribe:

<< Hi Doug,
 
 I disagree - greed&gold, diamonds are a girl's best friend - comparions
 between meteorites and materials, which epitomize rareness, desirability and
 value, are most perspicuous to laymen, who in general, if they know, what a
 meteorite is at all, have no perception, how rare the stuff really is!!
 
 If we regard it in from a more obtuse angle, we have to concede that at
 present we have a totally sick and hilarious situation, haven't we?
 Worldwide there are handful of institutional collections and perhaps 1000
 private collectors and we deal more or less in a coterie with by far the
 rarest material in existance and the impact of the desert material together
 with the simultaneous development of ebay as the main selling instrument and
 additionally the puny inflow of new collectors, led to the situation, that
 the rarest types of meteorites, even those, where exist on whole world only
 such a little amount, that one could comfortably store in a small trunk, are
 permanently, day by day, available in web at lower prices, than at which any
 lousy semi-precious stone is going.
 It's amazing also with the ordinary desert stuff. If you are not living near
 a desert, blue ice field or a site, where once a meteorite was found, you
 can get out of the door and run around for the rest of your life with your
 detector, you'll find gold and silver, but no meteorite. And this stuff you
 can buy cheaper now than many other consumer goods! So cheap, that some
 hunters even let their chondrites in desert, as the transportation costs
 wouldn't justify to pick them up.
 So we have the ditsy situation, that those members of the small circle of
 collectors, who should know it better,
 dwell on quarellings, whether a price is exaggerated and whether this or
 that stone could be found somewhere a dollar per gram cheaper or that they
 let pass a R-chondrite, wherefrom exist less material than from Moon,
 21kg, if I remember right, at 5 or 6$ per gram on ebay, always forgetting
 that they have to deal with by far the most rare and nonreproducable matter
 on Earth.
 Man Doug! Remember Bessey's After-Munich-show-dumping, when he was to lazy
 to wrap all in again and offered it at 50$/kg? I propagated this sale to
 about 300 Germans too and they had even an offer for gratis instant
 classification and NWA-numbering, additionally the shipment rates were
 cheap, around 9$ for 20kg.
 Doug, tell me, what could a collector desire more? With that small amounts
 an average collector usually is consumating, he would never manage to get
 the stuff so cheap, if he would travel by his own to Morocco to buy and if
 he would afterwards add up the expences of that trip on the kg-price. Not to
 mention the hard slog to get ordinary chondrites classified.
 Do you know how much they ordered?
 12kg. Twelve kilo.
 A very intriguing experiment, isn't it.
 Obviously they perceived the price as not attractive.
 But why? I would hazard a guess that those reasons led them to their
 opinion:
 - as meteorites are permanently available on ebay, they are not aware, that
 meteorites are rare.
 - what does not cost much, has no value
 (- a special German attitude at the moment: If a dealer offers smth. then
 they think, that he would make a good profit with his price, else he
 wouldn't offer it. Thus it's no bargain (and we rather pay 3 times more on
 ebay for the same stuff, as there we set the price, therefore then it's a
 bargain) + I'm a meteorite person, the dealer is meteorite person --> we are
 family, if the dealer wants to earn money with me, he's rotten).
 - they think that meteorites will be available in those current quantities
 until the endof all days, as in Morocco for sure are still waiting 100,000
 tons, not knowing, that the rush is over.
 Now your turn, Doug. Don't you think, that then such comparisions are
 helpful?
 Do you agree at least, that it's amusing,
 that people scorn material, which is by far more rare than gold and about as
 rare as diamonds at 50/kg.
 Homework for you - 2 days ago my computer got broke (paaaanic), have no
 time - find goods, which cost more than 50bucks per kilo and estimate their
 quantities.
 
 Another experiment. Search on ebay for meteori*: I get out 1037 items (most
 are meteorites).
 853 meteorites listed in category: Rocks, Fossils, Minerals.
 Search for amethyst.
 921 items are listed in category: Rocks, Fossils, Minerals.
 Conclusion for the laymen: Meteorites are as rare as amethyst.
 Look for ammonite 598 hits.
 Conclusion for the laymen: Ammonites are twice as rare than meteorites.
 Da capo....
 
 You see, how insane funny it is?
 The Hupes, Afanasjev, Haberer permanently offer lunaites in US-and German
 ebay.
 (Hey a dream for those from the Apollo-generation).
 A layman looks into ebay, sees that there each week are listed several
 pieces of Moon for sale
 - who could resent, that he thinks then - Moon, if it's available each day
 on ebay, it must be a very common thing. Wherefrom should he know, that all
 lunar material still available in public for the 6 billion human beings on
 this planet even won't fill his backpack?
 
 Another phenomen caused by the sheer visibility of the overwhelming choice
 of meteorites on web:
 more and more laymen are convinced, that the brown stone they picked up, is
 a meteorite.
 A very funny observation I made: in former times people wrote and ask: Could
 my find be a meteorite?
 Now they ask: What is the value of my meteorite, how can I sell it best.
 And I tell you, with more and more it's getting more difficult to convince
 them, that the stone they found in the garden is no lunar mare basalt.
 Here in Germany with our 40 preserved meteorites from the last 1000 years,
 where most fell on the feet of the people, I always have to explain them,
 that to hit the lottery-jackpot is ways more probable, than to find here a
 meteorite.
 But still some of them don't believe me, the sickest are those, who tell me
 names, when I'm offering a meteorite, because they would be able to find
 copiously such meteorites on their next airing...
 
 Crazy world. We have to do with the rarest stuff on Earth, where the
 Japanese spend 300 Mega$ to collect a gram, but almost nobody knows, that
 it's so rare. Parallel universe.
 
 And with the experts, I often have to grin, when they, let's invent a more
 eyecatching example and take a space jewel, one of the only 80 pallasites,
 complain that anything else than 0.4$/g would be a rip-off.
 Folks! Imagine meteorite collecting would be as popular as philately, how
 much would you have to pay then!
 (and Captain Blood, sorry, I still refuse to apprehend, that there exist
 smth like a "meteorite market", if you count together all collectors, they
 are much less than you tought in your profession...).
 
 So Doug, let exist 5 times more meteorites than the listed tkws, the
 proportions do not change at all!
 
>is systemmatically under-represented on virtually all
> minor impacting meteorites
 
 Would doubt that (or I misunderstood).
 By far the most registered meteorites stem from Antarctica and from desert.
 Don't know, how accurate the balances are the Antartic teams are using, but
 I guess the weights are accurate.
 Same with Oman finds, with a very few exceptions
 and the NWAs, there are given the weights of the purchased stones. Would not
 make sense for the dealers to keep secret, that they have from the submitted
 stone more in stock as told - only then, if they are so jerkish and would
 submit from the material in future to get more numbers, but then the weights
 would be recorded anyway.
 Don't come with 869, whether it has 2 tons or 4 tons doesn't make the
 cabbage fatty, as we say here.
 
 With stone meteorites your guess certainly doesn't work,
 make some stats - how many >1 ton stones do we know from our 30.000-40.000
 meteorites?
 Impromptu: Jilin, Allende, Pultusk (lost), NWA 869, Tsarev, perhaps
 Kunya-Urgench, perhaps Gao....and...and....?
 So no sincere reason to conjecture, that everywhere a small stone felt, that
 there are some tons more in the nearby forest.
 
 Somewhat different with irons and stony irons, but irons make up only 5% of
 all falls and if you count that few mass irons available and which still are
 hunted today - a dozen perhaps?
 And don't forget, that only those strewnfields are hunted, which promise
 good finds.....
 So add some dozens or 100tons for Campo, Gibeon, Nantan, Sikhote,
 Canyon...and there we are.
 It might change the tonnage of all meteorites considerably, but not the
 ratios to other earthly rare materials.
 
 And so I think to illustrate the rareness of meteorites, we should all carry
 on, if asked, with comparing meteorites with other pretious materials.
 
 Buckleboo!
 Martin
 
 PS: I'll ever will prefer meteorites instead of gold&diamonds, they are more
 fascinating. >>
Received on Wed 07 Dec 2005 02:26:35 PM PST