[meteorite-list] Wolf Creek total mass

From: Jeff Grossman <jgrossman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Mar 10 17:00:19 2006
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060310162316.046a5780_at_usgs.gov>

The NomCom was formed in 1973, with Ray Binns (chair), Roy Clarke,
Glenn Huss, E. L. Krinov, and Robert Hutchison as charter
members. These two spellings, Wolf Creek and Okechobee, were in use
long before that.

Basically, the Society decided to adopt the Catalogue of Meteorites,
which in the mid 20th century was the Hey catalogue, as the official
list of meteorite names. The formal decision to do this coincided
with the formation of the NomCom. Before that, there was no such
thing as an "official" meteorite name, although many people accepted
the Catalogue's recommendations.

You can read some of the early rumblings that led to the creation of
the NomCom in
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1971Metic...6...21H
and
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1972Metic...7...17B.

As to Kevin Forbe's question about how corrections are made: they are
not. Once a name gets into the literature and catalogs, the general
philosophy is that it is better to leave it alone than to start
changing it. The only exceptions to this have been when typos were
caught soon after publication of the Bulletin and nobody had
published anything yet.

Jeff

At 03:24 PM 3/10/2006, David Weir wrote:
>Frank,
>
>I believe you missed the point of my post. I don't place any blame
>with the NomCom for an incorrect spelling for Lake Okeechobee
>recorded back in 1916, before the MetSoc NomCom even existed (1933),
>it's that I don't suspect there were all that many names to type
>into whatever official record existed in 1916, and being the first
>meteorite to be recorded from Florida, I'm just curious how
>something of such apparent importance got screwed up... back then. I
>am wondering about the wheels of the system of that time, and how
>this spelling error was allowed to propagate instead of being caught
>and corrected - by a secretary or somebody - before it became the
>"official" record. Certainly a number of people had to approve of
>this name along its way to officialdom, likely some from Okeechobee
>too. Heck, I may even have erors in spelling in this post, but then
>this is not going to be a historic record of any significance like
>the name of the first meteorite to be found in the state of Florida.
>At what point did the name Okechobee cross the continuum and become
>uncorrectable? It's a matter for history and those of us who have an
>issue with the misspelling of the name of one of only four
>meteorites known from our home state. Anyway, this was my point, but
>thanks for defending the MetSoc reputation about my post.
>
>David
>
>DavidFrank Prochaska wrote:
>> Frankly, with the thousands of "official" meteorites from hundreds
>>of states and countries in which scores of languages are spoken which are
>>written in a number of alphabets and syllabaries (sp? - looking for the word
>>for methods of writing like kanji, not really an alphabet), let alone issues
>>like ancient American Indian place names in locations where the primary
>>language is English, it's a wonder little errors like this are not much more
>>common. I think the NomCom does a wonderful job, given their scope,
>>resources, and circumstances.
>>Frank Prochaska
>Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Wolf Creek total mass
>>Herbert Raab wrote:
>>
>>>Bob WALKER writes:
>>>
>>>>Defintely WOLFE Creek with an e
>>>>
>>>>At least the Western Australian government and a map says so...
>>>>they can't all be wrong can they hmmm
>>>
>>>
>>>They can be wrong. The place may well be named Wolfe Creek (with "e"),
>>>but the meteorite is oficially named Wolf Creek (without "e").
>>>Wolfe Creek is not even registered as a synonym.
>>
>>I guess that's a bit like the official NomCom misspelling of the
>>Lake "Okeechobee", FL meteorite, the meteorite incorrectly spelled
>>Okechobee, and no synonyms listed either. It makes you wonder how
>>such a thing occurred.
>>David
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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 Fri 10 Mar 2006 04:59:48 PM PST