[meteorite-list] conflicting viewpoints

From: Jeff Grossman <jgrossman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Aug 14 10:45:48 2006
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060814054006.03e4ce20_at_usgs.gov>

Dear all,

It is simply not true that scientists only collect meteorites in
Antarctica. I personally know of many scientific collecting
expeditions, including countries like Oman, Morocco, Mauritania,
Libya, Niger, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Chile, Australia, and
the US, all in the last 10 years, all done in cooperation with or by
local institutions.

What you have to remember is that there are political barriers for
outsiders who want to do official research in some of the most
important of these countries, whereas the countries themselves have
few or no scientists who work on things like meteorites. Probably
two of the three most important meteorite-producing countries on the
list above are Libya and Algeria, and I probably don't have to tell
anybody why it has been difficult for other countries to mount
official expeditions to these places (although there have been a few
and things are slowly improving). In contrast, there are now active,
healthy scientific relationships between the Omanis and foreign
institutions resulting in many meteorite finds. The same goes for
Australia, where most of the Nullarbor meteorites have been found by
scientific expeditions.

But private collectors have not faced these political barriers in
places that have proved difficult for scientists to penetrate, or at
least they have largely been able to avoid them. They do not need to
go through official diplomatic channels, or at least for the most
part they have avoided it. A passport, some money, the ability to
endure harsh conditions, and a willingness to take risks are what
have given us many desert finds by nonscientists. Some of this has
been legal, some maybe not, and a lot of it is murky. But murky is
unacceptable for a foreign scientist trying to raise money for an expedition.

Could scientists have done more over the last 10 years to collect
desert meteorites themselves? Probably so. But the playing field is
not level between those who must do things openly, officially, and,
dare I say it, legally, as every university and museum must, and
private collectors who can fly by the seat of their pants.

Jeff

At 04:56 AM 8/14/2006, Sterling K. Webb wrote:
>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
>
>
>______________________________________________
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Dr. Jeffrey N. Grossman phone: (703) 648-6184
US Geological Survey fax: (703) 648-6383
954 National Center
Reston, VA 20192, USA
Received on Mon 14 Aug 2006 06:32:57 AM PDT