[meteorite-list] New Moroccan fall news.

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:45:09 +0100
Message-ID: <002c01c978a1$6fa630c0$177f2a59_at_name86d88d87e2>

humhem,

don't want to sound cheekily, but the fall of a new meteorite is a joyful
event and not a calamity or a disgrace..
Isn't it?

Well, can't understand the public poison in that debate about the new fall,
just a little patience and then we'll see, what had happened, what has been
found ect.

Meanwhile some boring sentimentalities.:-)

When I was a little boy, buying my first meteorite, there existed 2000
finds, 1000 falls,
90% of them locked away in institutions, and at the best available in single
micro-bogey-sized crumbs.
I noticed the Calcalong sensation, I saw DaG 400 and 262 arriving, asking
prices of a quarter of a million per gram.
Whenever I pointed my telescope to the Moon, I dreamt of holding a stone
from up there in my hands, like those white men on the iconostasis of space
flight.
Mars I observed of course too, but never it came to my mind, that a stone
from there would have made it to Earth,
cause Zagami had on his label still standing: "eucrite".
Today I handle main masses of Moon and Mars. And Mars and Moon are ours. We
even earn money with them (even dicing it in little pieces, making little
Martin's old dream come true for thousands of people).

I got in my hands types and stones, which I never could get in my possession
on the "classical names" sector, simply because they would not be affordable
or available or in some cases, simply because such stones where not known so
far.
Yah, it costs us endless work, nerves, health, sometimes frustration,
personal and financial risks, also skills in recognizing and experience are
needed,
but in the final consequence, were it we, who picked up the suspicious stone
in desert?

This year we will reach NWA-number 6000.
Twice as much finds as meteorites in total from the 2000 years before
existed, when I started.
The rarest types became readily available to the collectors and science and
so low rates were asked as unseen in the 200 years of meteorite trade
before.
It may sound unwelcomely to the classic/conservative collectors, but aside
Antarctica,
in meteoritics of the last two decades, the progress of the subject and
planetology, the most recoveries by number and importance were made in
research on the hot desert finds, where NWAs outnumber all other desert
finds together.
These NWAs were not found by scientific expeditions and campaigns,
they were hunted and brought to light by the people of these NWA-countries
and channelled through Morocco.

The meteorite community - private collectors and professional scientists -
profited on the work of the Moroccans.

The structures in Morocco grew in a different way, as we used to see from
professional meteorite hunters or scientific hunts.
In turn for this deficiency, the collectors, universities and museums don't
have to pay anymore 500 or 2000$ a gram for a howardite, but 5-40$, not
1000$ for a bencubbinite, but 50$ or less, not 800-1200$ for an Acapulcoite,
but 50$ and so on and not anymore 1000$++/g for a H5 W3 recovered in
Antarctica - and they have such a choice of exotic and unique stones, they
never would have dreamt of.
And in many respects resemble the NWAs the Antarctic finds, which have lost
due the migration of the ice all there strewnfield information, the
information about break-up and fall angle and the original weight of the
fall and which are numbered in the field, pairings put together later in the
lab.

And if there one can find other business standards and maybe here and there
a lousy ethics and if Morocco is shark-tank,
so what? The collector hasn't to care for,
as long as there are people working as a buffer, taking all risks on their
shoulders.

El Hammami, Zag, Bensour, Amgala, Bensour, Benguerir, Oum Dreyga, Chergach,
Bassikounou
They were the cheapest observed falls of their times and btw. in history
(e.g. 15 years after the 2 tons fall of Pultusk, the average price on the
world market was 7.4$/g - and it was the cheapest stone meteorite of its
time, the Gao, the NWA 869 of the 19th century). They yielded excellent to
fantastic stones, which a collector couldn't get hold of with the other
falls, simply because they produced not such stones or they were very
expensive.

Let's see, what this fall will bring and let's don't forget the other side
of the medal, what for an immense contribution and enrichment the finds and
falls from this corner of the world meant to the World of meteorites.

Have a nice and peaceful weekend!
Martin
Received on Sat 17 Jan 2009 07:45:09 AM PST