[meteorite-list] Prospectors, Scientists Vie for Rocks More Precious Than Gold (Meteorites)

From: stan . <laser_maniac_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Feb 27 02:17:19 2006
Message-ID: <BAY101-F33CF74CFC78BD6CA53C1B4F0F60_at_phx.gbl>

>This worries some scientists who study meteorites for clues about the
>early life of our solar system. They wonder how many new finds they'll
>get access to before the space rocks are sliced into collectible
>fragments and disappear into private collections.
*snip*
>''I don't think of them as my competition," Lauretta said, ''because
>they're out there pounding the hot desert ground, making new
>discoveries, when I don't have time to do that."

am i the only person who finds the 'push' of these articles about Kilgore's
efforts personally offensive?

comemrcial meteorite exploration - most of it int he last decade - has
resulted in more new types of meteorites and more precious planetary samples
than the combined historic efforts of research collection. i'm not faulting
the academics, they have limited time and money to work with, but quite
simply the oly way these rocks would never be avalible for study is if they
were left in the desert - something the academic world seems largely content
to do. very rarely is an unusual stone found that isnt formally classified
at some point. when this is done the type specimin is curated at the
classifying laboratory and avalible for study by any qualified researcher
who wants it. the faster exciting new material comes to the collectors
market the faster type specimins of scientifically important material will
be avalible to researchers - at no cost to science I might ad (AFIK no one
lab is paying for the privalge of doing classifications, if anything the
reverse is true)

I'm going to write the author of this article and sugegst anyone who might
feel the same as i do should as well...
Received on Mon 27 Feb 2006 02:17:15 AM PST