[meteorite-list] Fw: Fragments recovered from the January 17fireball

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:01:39 +0100
Message-ID: <001101c9a4a5$03cc0070$177f2a59_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Thomas,

yes indeed I think the countries could rely more on the positive experiences
made with the recent falls,
cause to me it seems, that to restrictive laws are not conducive to the
purpose they were made for
and lead rather to very small tkws or that no meteorites at all are
recovered after a possible fall.

Experiences made in our decade were good in the cases of

2002 Neuschwanstein.
There was a perfect cooperation between the DLR/fireball network and the
private side - in as far as they gave all data for the pre-calculated
strewnfiels to everyone, who wanted to search
and utilized with that method an enormous manpower,
so that finally the three stones were recovered (all by private
individuals).

2004 Villalbeto de la Pena, there non-official hunters contributed the
majority of the tkw, among them even oriented stones.

2006 Moss - there after the first 2 stones were found, the private hunters
contributes 2/3 of the tkw, amongst other the main mass and the second
largest stone.

2007 Puerto Lapice - was solely and initially recovered by private
enthusiasts - without their work, nothing at all would have been found.

As well as now 2009 - the Danish fall.

All the fantastic Maghreb falls,
Bensour, Oum Dreyga, partially Benguerir, Bassikonou, Erg Chergach
there, despite the field work was neglected, it is very positively that all
these nameless hunters generated such large tkws and that the finds were
recovered so promptly.
With Bassikonou private collectors made a very professional documentation in
cataloguing as many specimens as possible - again in the necessary fast
manner.
Hence a work, which - like the field work with all the other Maghreb falls,
couldn't have be done by the "official" side - due to the complete lack of
the scientific infrastructure regarding meteorites in these countries.
And - side note - due to the work of all these nameless hunters,
these Maghreb falls rank among the cheapest freshly fallen stones in
history,
pretty more cheap than Alfianello and Pultusk at their times, the all-time
lows in fall-prices, I guess, only Allende with it's several tons was
cheaper.

Cali was well documented by private meteorite hunters.

West
Seems to take a very good direction.


And I'm sure the members of the list could add some more examples of the
2000er falls. Thuathe? Maigatari-Daiduma? Moravka?

Bad experiences were made with these:

Tagish Lake
- cause large parts of the fall weren't recovered in time and were lost and
in the end unnecessarily expensively the universities had to buy material.
But that happened solely in the responsibility of the official side.

Benguerir
- where stones were confiscated by police, without documenting them, and
which were resold by them.

Carancas
- where we witnessed a unworthy war between private persons, where similar
to Benguerir stones were confiscated and sold and where the official side
proved to be overburden in retrieving material, in classifiying the material
and in preserving the crater - due to a lack of experience.

Berduc
- supposedly only, cause it sounds a little bit strange, that the
strewnfield extended to a neighbour country without prohibitive laws.

Hosur
- there the attempts to build up a similar professional and complete
documentation by those who proved in past to be able to do that, was
suppressed by the official authorities.

Else, several potential meteorite droppers were not searched after
because of the legal situation in countries with restrictrive laws (e.g. in
Australia and Switzerland last year).

Regarding finds independently to falls,
I guess, I haven't to repeat, what I wrote so often.

The official Bulletin Database speaks a clear languague,

in all countries with a large number of meteorites before,
the find numbers broke down almost completely after restrictive laws came
into force there, while parallely in those countries with suitable hunting
grounds and without legal restrictions the number of finds remarkably grew
or even exploded during the last 10 years.

Seen the fact, that these very years, one country after the other is closed
down for private activities with the consequences everyone can observe,
I do indeed see a certain responsibility of the research and science parties
hereto to weigh up the advantages and the damage of suchthose restrictive
legislation based on the figures and facts, which are already available from
those countries having made their experiments with banning private
activities.

Some more soberness and reason, that's all, what we ask...

Best!
Martin

   


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Thomas
?sterberg
Gesendet: Samstag, 14. M?rz 2009 10:58
An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] Fw: Fragments recovered from the January
17fireball


Hi List and Martin,



I certainly agree with you! The best thing would be if the Danish
authorities quickly revised their laws regarding meteorites, allowing
private hunters and collectors to keep at least a portion of their findings.

Perhaps something similar to the situation in Canada, where meteorite
collectors can get permission to keep and to export their meteorites if they

only cooperate with Canadian museums and authorities and are willingly to
let some time pass.



It would be interesting to know about Mr. Haacks opinion in this matter!



On contrary, here in Sweden the situation is the quite opposite. There are
no laws governing meteorite collecting, as far as I know. You can keep your
findings, and do what you want to do with them, as long you have spoken with

the local land owner and got his permission.



Happy hunting!



Thomas

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Altmann" <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 2:39 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fragments recovered from the January
17fireball


Hi Thomas,

>About Danish rules for collecting and exporting meteorites I think I've
read
>somewhere that the situatuon is similar to Canada. You have to get a
>permission to be able to legally export a Danish meteorite.

According Schmitt's article in MAPS, there is an "Museum act" in Denmark,
which says, that all Danish meteorites have to be delivered to a museum,
and the finder gets only an allowance for the expenses to find and to
deliver the specimens, but zero reward.

Hence, if that is true at all, it certainly would not be interesting to work
on that fall for professional and experienced hunters - so Henning Haack and
colleagues would have to try to find it and to increase the tkw by their
own.

A pity and less promising, as if professionals would attend to - especially
if I see, how the tkws of the European falls only of this decade were
multiplied or how some of them were recovered at all with their help...but
these are the laws.

Hope the Danish laws will be revised.
or better, I hope next fall will occur in Sweden ;-)

Best!
Martin


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Received on Sat 14 Mar 2009 09:01:39 AM PDT