[meteorite-list] A case not only for Bob

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:04:22 +0100
Message-ID: <004501ca9871$0ca09f60$07b22959_at_name86d88d87e2>

May he live long and prosper in happiness and at best health,

but when he started and when I started with meteorites,
Australia ranked among the Top-Three meteorite nations.

Now it is of no relevance anymore with less than 1 (ONE!!!) new find per
year on average.
And it's not Denmark, Poland or Switzerland - it is a whole continent full
of deserts.

If they wouldn't have cried - soon 30 years long - for the tiny Calcalong
Creek, they would have meanwhile kilos of Australian Lunars and Martians in
their institutes - and much more than Calcalong weighted for free as type
samples.

If they would have liberalised the meteorite laws around 1995, when it
became clearly visible, that they led to a disaster,
there would be now, in worst case, in total twice as much Australian
meteorites as we do have today in total.

In Germany we call that a "Stalingrad"-mentality.

Well, it's not our stein of beer...

....but I personally suppose that Australia must be a very wealthy nation.
If I remember that here in Germany one of the largest meteorite collection
of the world, the institute where a Ramdohr and a Paneth were working, was
dissolved for costs reason,
then I'd say any meteorite department here would be strongly endangered to
be shut down, if they had to handle only one meteorite per year...

He should also read the UNIDROIT convention, the convention following the
UNESCO moveable heritage convention of 1970 - what that means for the old
meteorites in the Aussie institutes of other countries of origin than
Australia. That sounds not so good there, hence no good, the idea, to have
set meteorites on the Australian UNESCO-lists...

Nja well.. oficial mills are milling slowly - perhaps we simply have to
wait for the next and new generation of meteorite researchers in Australia.

Would be nice, if they would buy a meteorite from us.
European Union is just bestowing Australia with a brand-new meteorite camera
network, using my hard-earned tax-money. Want some back.
While here the European camera network has severe difficulties to buy their
films for a few hundred bucks, EU uses funds for the Australian network,
sufficient to maintain the European network for the next 300 years.

Weird World.

Martin,
(Expressing his opinion and not speaking in his function for IMCA)


PS: I suggest a simple Lex Australiae:
Finder = Keeper - 30% of the find mandatory for free for Australia (or the
province).

And that as a model for Oman too, where we will face soon the same problems.
And for Libya.
And for Algeria... if it's not too late already.

That it works even with 20grams only, we saw it in NWA before and in USA and
in Oman:
Exploding find rates.

Simple problems do have often very simple solutions too.



-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Ted
Bunch
Gesendet: Montag, 18. Januar 2010 18:31
An: Martin Altmann; Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] A case not only for Bob

Bevan rules!


On 1/18/10 10:25 AM, "Martin Altmann" <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:

> Hello list,
>
> just recovered by a member of the German meteorite forum:
>
> http://kuerzer.de/diletto
>
>
> Don't we get finally sick and tired with that Australian idiocy, do we?
>
> Aren't there any persons, researchers, meteorite people with reason to be
> found on that continent, who feel the same pain how meteoritics is getting
> fully destroyed there?
>
> In the German meteorite forum we painted a graph for the find rates in
> Australia, USA ect.
>
> In Australia from 1900 until ca 1960 the find rates were relatively
constant
> and higher than in the 19th century. Then a promising ascent followed
until
> the end of the 1980ies (while in USA the find rate dropped a little bit),
> and then a real boost happened, wherefore not only Bevan's expedition in
> 1991, Euromet 1992 and 1994 were responsible.
>
> 1995 then - and it is really concussive - we observe the COMPLETE
breakdown
> of the Australian find rates, not only to the level of the 1960ies, not
down
> to the level of the 1900-1950, but down to the level of the 1800ier years!
> And that lasts until today.
>
> WHILE PARALLELY the find rates in the U.S. - which have less suitable
> hunting grounds but which aren't punished by such paranoid meteorite laws
> like Australia - exploded to a level like Australia had in his very best
few
> years, shortly before the Australian meteorite laws came finally into
force.
>
> I can't help myself - why nobody in Australia of the meteorite world is
> taking action to abolish these laws, which led to that disaster?
>
> It must be in the very best interest of every Australian meteoricist,
> that Australia has to turn back from ZERO to find rates, like they are
> common in each desert country.
>
> Is there any initiative taken by you, the Australian scientists, to modify
> the unhandy laws?
>
> I mean, if there are almost no meteorites found there, less than 1 per
year,
> neither official expeditions are undertaken, wouldn't there be a danger,
> that some meteorite departments could be simply closed down?
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Mon 18 Jan 2010 02:04:22 PM PST