[meteorite-list] conflicting viewpoints

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Aug 14 04:56:09 2006
Message-ID: <004801c6bf7f$78486500$ec384842_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, List, Dr. Hutson,



> It is true that many meteorites have been found
> by dealers/hunters that would have just sat on the
> ground otherwise, as scientists do not go out
> into the field to search for meteorites (with the
> exception of Antarctica).

    If it is true that "scientists do not go out into the field
to search for meteorites," then the word you are looking for
is "all" rather than "many."

    Setting Antarctica aside for the moment, we see academic
geologists go out into the field for data, academic paleontologists
go out into the field for data, academic paleoanthropologists
go out into the field for data, as well as academic anthropologists
of the living humans, academic social scientists go out into the
field for data, whether it's The 'Hood or the rain forest, academic
astronomers go out into the field for data and build there multi-
billion dollar observatories to collect that data, academic
oceanographers and marine biologists go out into the field
for data, which field is an ocean replete with storms, danger,
and a lot of vomiting -- I could stretch this list out for a page,
but I won't.

    So, pray tell, WHY do academic meteoriticists NOT go out into
the field for data? Do paleoanthropologists sit in their labs waiting
for someone to bring by the missing link to be classified? Does the
anthropologist wait for some stranger to drag in a pygmy? And so
forth, for another equally long list... The answer, naturally, is "No."

    They are the ones that know; they are the ones that go.

    Surely, you would not stipulate that private individuals, dealers,
collectors, lay-persons, are better qualified, better trained, more
skilled, better working SCIENTISTS in the field than those whose
academic area of study, specialty, lifelong object of knowledge,
is meteorites?

    OK, at this point, I lift my foot from the throttle... There are
research scientists and field scientists, theoretical physicists and
experimental physicists, lab people and field people, thinkers
and doers, mentational scholars and scholars who like to dig in
the blazing desert at 120 degrees, whether it's for ancient man in
the Afar or a chunk of the Moon in Oman, but...

    I have listened to (OK, read) this same argument on this List for
years, with the same things being said over and over again. Everybody
is missing the point. Step back and look again. The mighty-meteorite-
hunter, dealer, merchant, collector hierarchical network has grown
up because there is a glaring structural deficiency in science. In
non-academic terms, there is a big hole and people will fill it, an
empty gap into which human activity has poured, as it always
has and always will.

    This is a structural problem, people, nothing more. The one field
of academic scientific study among many that deals with physically
real objects from all over the universe, be they fossils, other humans,
rare species of other natural life, continents, mountains and oceans,
or galaxies far away, that never leaves the lab to look at, or look for,
the object of their study is... the academic scientific study of meteorites.

    It is a scientific field of study with a research pole and no field
pole, like a magnetic monopole of the knowledge biz. The Indiana
Jones of Meteorites who puts on all that khaki and jumps on a plane
bound for God Knows Where at the first news of a confirmed fall
is not a mild mannered professor in real life, because...? Because
there are NO professors that do that. So instead private individuals,
be they businessmen or enthusiasts or both, do that. Whose "fault"
is that? "Look not to the heavens, Horatio, the fault lies in our
academic structural problem."

    There once WERE academic professorial meteorite field
scientists: H. H. Nininger (who was a professor who quit his
college to chase meteorites), Kulik who went back and back into
Siberia until he found Tunguska, Krinov, Lincoln LaPaz, all
academics, all both researchers AND field workers. But no
longer. Or at least, very little, for the last half century.

    OK, time to drag Antarctica back into the discussion. Yes,
almost as many Antarctic meteorites as the rest of the world's
collection. Is this the missing field science of meteorites?
Yes and no. 1.) No falls, just finds. 2.) Cryodynamics collects
the meteorites and piles them up in one place; if the climate
were benign you could send bright teenagers to collect them
(if there were any bright teenagers) or grad students. It's like
shooting fish in a very cold barrel, though. 3.) Antarctica, in
theory a sacred preserve for all mankind where national claims
are not allowed, is in reality restricted to the activities of (big)
nations and only to activities of a national character: top-down,
institutional, bureaucratic, official. Antarctica's meteorites
are national, institutional, official property, a world apart.

    In effect, institutional science has staked its exclusive claim
to Antarctic meteorites and renounced its claim to do field work
anywhere else, renounced its claim to the rest of the world by
its behavior: it doesn't hunt meteorites in the rest of the world,
only in Antarctica. This is a totally artificial (and gently loony)
dichotomy.

    Science has chosen only to hunt for meteorites in a place
over which official institutions have full and authoritarian
control and "science" has no competition, where collecting
is the easiest (calculate numbers of meteorites found, divide by
collector-days = by far the easiest pickings ever), where science's
possession of the desired object is exclusive, private, and total,
like a certain "my precious." Sometimes that can be bad for you...

    If that sounds harsh, why then is it also true? If scientists
don't feel that way at all, oh, no, why has it happened?

> most public repositories (museums and universities) don't
> have funds to purchase samples, and so cannot compete
> with dealers when a fresh fall occurs.

    If there is no money in the budget of ANY institution that
does meteorite science to go pick up a meteorite when it falls,
in Norway or Nevada, why not?

    The Geology department gets money to go gawk at a new
volcano or scrape at the K-T boundary, right? Those weirdo's
over in Anthro get to go to Pacific islands and live with the
natives (all in the interest of science, yeah)? There's money
in the budget for folks, er, scientists to hang out with cool
dolphins, undoubtedly?

    All I can say, if it is true that there is no money in any
budget of any institution of meteoritic science anywhere
to recover a fresh fall when it happens, then you guys are
getting snookered, because all the other scientists are getting
money to go into the field for their object of study, whatever
it is. ("Ma! All the OTHER scientists are doing it!")

    Does nobody ever think of it? Dies nobody ever ask for
the money? Does nobody ever try to sweat together a funding
package? Everybody in science does that. Is all that anybody
can think of is to ask to be remembered in some collector's
will? What is meteorite science? Public Radio?

    Buying a fresh fall from the finder is best price but a poor
choice. A dealer who buys a fresh fall is paying the lowest price
that meteorite will ever have, at least within a near 3-5 year horizon;
in the long run, it is ALWAYS the cheapest price. Esquel?
The finder will sell it, at a profit, to somebody who will cut it
and re-sell it, at a profit, to others, etc. A dealer who re-sells
for less will not be a dealer for too long unless his personal
pockets are very deep indeed. So, a dealer-finder price is the
lowest price. But of course, if you are on the ground and you
find the meteorite instead of the dealer, you don't have to pay
anything to anybody, just the expenses of finding it.

    And there is no reason to restrict academic meteorite
recovery to "fresh falls" alone, although they may be
preferred. Science could "settle" for a nice Lunar even
if it had a few years on it... And how much would it
have cost for an academic team to have done in Kansas
the work that Steve Arnold did? Are there no academics
in Kansas?

    "Public repositories (museums and universities)" do
spend money. I know they do; I've seen it happen quite
a lot. Academic institutions paid me salaries (not enough of
course) for a good long while, so you know they're not
THAT picky as to how they spend their money.

    Therefore, when one says they "don't have funds
to purchase" this or that particular thing, that statement
is, strictly speaking, false. The true form of the statement is
that they "don't choose to spend any of the money they
have and DO spend" on meteorite recovery, sample
acquisition, nor any meteoritic endeavor, other than for
the electricity to run the lights in the cases in the museum.

    Now, you can't wait for the idea of spending money that
way to magically pop into the head of one or more car-dealing
board members, enigmatic deans, or even university presidents,
all praise be unto them. That's not going to happen, not before
the heat death of the universe, anyway. That's just not the
way it happens.

    You don't think the thought of spending money on the
field necessities of geologists, anthropologists, astronomers,
sprouted spontaneously in the brains of academic governance,
do you? No, it was a cash crop, planted by and nurtured to
some lengthy maturity by, guess who? Those same geologists,
anthropologists, astronomers, etc. who get to spend all that
money (it's not enough of course). And of course, not all that
money is the institution's money; a good funding package
has its hands in lots of pockets.

    I'm already writing the proposal in my head, well, thinking
of good arguments to make. The funding is continual, the
occasion to use the money is unpredictable and sudden,
not scheduled. Therefore by allocating money in smaller
increments (against a draw if not fully funded) to take
advantage of a new fall, the money remains until the world
provides occasion to use it (meanwhile drawing interest,
dividends, etc.) It's not the same as sending five members
of the Geology Dept. to crawl through fumaroles in Iceland
this summer; you know that money is gone... And airlines
and Icelandic bartenders are richer thereby.

    The PR potential is great. What institution that studies
meteorites also finds them? None. It's a first (if it happened).
I pity the academic institution whose press office couldn't
make a lot of mileage with that.

    Add eight more good reasons and the "secrets of the
universe" and you're there.

    I assume that nothing like this has ever happened because
nobody made it happen or wanted it to happen, strange as
that may seem.

    OK, here's another proposal. Fund a national initiative to
prepare, develop and staff one or two Meteorite Recovery
Teams drawn from a consortium of academic institutions
of meteoritics, universities, museums, you pick'em. The
funding? Well, you know that 20 grams everybody coughs
up for classification? Sell to the public, at a very measured
pace, a 20 gram sample of each of the tens of thousands
of National Antarctic meteorites over 2 kilo mass -- 1%.
Minimum bid $5000 to $10,000? (And, heck, the 20 grams
could be from material ALREADY cut and researched to
death). That would pay for an incredible amount of field
work. Get a Congressman to slip a rider into the defense
appropriations that mandates that the Air Force will fly the
MRT to every fresh fall on a priority basis...

    Look at the history. Before 1970, meteorites were the
only samples of extraterrestrial material we had. Not so
after 1970. Meteoritic field work on the planet as a whole
and performed by science pretty much ceases after 1970.
Science just ceases to do it. For whatever reason. (Later,
science sets up a closed shop in Antarctica.)

    The private commercial meteorite market in 1970 was
minute and trivial, probably on a lesser scale than it had
been in the old heyday of Ward's Scientific, perhaps at
a century-long low. The number of meteorite collectors
in the USA was dwarfed by, say, the number of collectors
of moustache cups in Iowa. Today, there are articles in
trendy magazines about meteorites -- in terms of finance,
as a market. The "B" word is bandied about.

    I do not think these changes are co-incidental, but related.
At this point, I am also not sure that these changes could
ever be reversed, given the magnitude of the change. But
assuredly, science is doing nothing to change it back nor
alter the balance.

    The actual cost of lunar material retrieved by Saturn V
Apollo rocket system from the Moon was about $12,500
per gram if you count retrieving it as the sole objective of
the flight. "Science" was willing to pay that, or someone
with big bucks was. The American People? Lunar material
as lunaites costs less now. All that has changed is the
willingness of government, or science, or society, or
academic institutions to pay for it. Individuals, many of
whom are members of that same American People
mentioned above, apparently ARE willing to pay for it.

    Should that be the state of affairs? I leave that question
to philosophers, politicians, and all who want to ponder it.
Is that the state of affairs? Absolutely. Did it come about
as the result of what scientific institutions as a whole did
or didn't do? I believe so. Science moved on to the Big
Show: Moon Rocks, Missions, a Presence in the Prestige
Pool of Antarctica -- all terribly important, yes, -- but
science let the meteorites fall where they may.

    All that has changed is who is now willing to pay for them.
One either changes that or lives with it.


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: <mhutson_at_pdx.edu>
To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 3:37 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] conflicting viewpoints


>
>
>
> This is in response to the posting "Stop thieves! Meteorite marauders of
> Norway!" by Michael Mazur. In his posting, Mr. Mazur says "There aren't
> many
> of us but I'd like to think that we're not thieves who don't care about
> science as is implied by the article. If you disagree with Elen's
> proposal,
> maybe a gentle note explaining how you think meteorite collectors and
> dealers
> can and do help science would be a good idea."
>
> I am a scientist, not a collector or a dealer, and I see a bit of both
> sides of
> this issue. It is true that many meteorites have been found by
> dealers/hunters
> that would have just sat on the ground otherwise, as scientists do not go
> out
> into the field to search for meteorites (with the exception of
> Antarctica). It
> is also true that in general, a type specimen of each meteorite is
> deposited in
> a repository during classification, making this material available to
> scientists for research. I say "in general", because some of the
> repositories
> are private collections and it is not clear that this material will be
> available to scientists in the future.
>
> So why aren't scientists jumping up and down in happiness. Well, for one
> thing,
> not all of the material that is found will ever be seen by a scientist. A
> lot
> of meteorites are being sold without being classified. I've received more
> than
> one request from a person who bought a meteorite off of e-bay with a
> provisional
> NWA number, who wants their sample classified. As these are whole stones,
> with
> no material missing, it is clear that someone requested a provisional
> number,
> just for the purpose of being able to sell a "named meteorite". Some of
> these
> may not even be meteorites. Additionally, scientists aren't happy about
> the
> current system because some of the dealers/collectors have been known to
> lie
> about important information (such as when and where a sample was
> collected).
> Also, most public repositories (museums and universities) don't have funds
> to
> purchase samples, and so cannot compete with dealers when a fresh fall
> occurs.
> It is important to study fresh falls quickly, before they've experienced
> significant terrestrial weathering. While some dealers/collectors are
> very
> generous about donating substantial amounts of material to an institution
> for
> study, others are very reluctant to give even the minimum 20 grams require
> by
> the Nomenclature Committee. For large-scale breccias (think Portales
> Valley),
> a 20 gram sample gives a very misleading view of the entire meteorite.
> Also,
> as many analytical techniques are destructive; if only 20 grams is
> available to
> scientists (who can't afford to buy samples), then that sample is unlikely
> to be
> thoroughly studied.
>
> Finally, private collections can be lost when the collector dies. I
> recently
> had someone come in with a fist-sized piece of Canyon Diablo that they had
> bought for $3 at a garage sale. It had no information - the people
> selling the
> meteorite weren't even aware that it was a meteorite. It had obviously
> come
> from someone's collection. Also, recently a private collector here in
> Oregon
> died unexpectedly, without leaving a will. He was a bachelor with no
> close
> relatives. One of the dealers from whom he had purchased meteorites was
> aware
> that the man had wanted to leave his collection to a museum. Distant
> relatives
> called me in to help identify samples. The samples had gotten jumbled and
> separated from the labels, I suspect when the relatives were looking
> through
> the samples. The collector had a catalog (without photographs), and we
> were
> able to match most of the samples to the descriptions in the catalog,
> although
> a handful of samples remained unidentified. The collector's relatives
> then
> sold off all of the material. They may or may not have included correct
> information with the samples.
>
> So, I suspect that unless ALL dealers become more generous with the amount
> of
> samples they donate (particularly for falls - to local institutions), they
> will
> find that more and more countries are going to place restrictions on the
> ability
> of dealers/hunters to purchase or collect samples. Unfortunately, it only
> takes
> one or two "bad apples" to give all dealers a bad reputation.
>
> And if you are a collector who values your collection and doesn't want to
> see
> your material broken or sliced up and sold on e-bay, then you should write
> a
> will, directing what should happen to your collection when you die. If
> you
> intend to leave your material to an institution, you should leave a copy
> of
> your will with someone (curator?) at that institution. And you shouldn't
> wait.
> While we would all like to die of old age, accidents happen.
>
>
> Melinda Hutson, curator
> Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory
> Portland State University
> Department of Geology
> 17 Cramer Hall, 1721 SW Broadway
> Portland OR 97207-0751
> Phone: 503-725-3372
> Fax: 503-725-3025
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
Received on Mon 14 Aug 2006 04:56:01 AM PDT