[meteorite-list] Meteorite 20 Questions - Answer and Share if youDare. :)

From: David R. Vann <drvann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:26:50 -0400
Message-ID: <DA9487F8060B4D46A7AA91F9C71A91F9_at_sas.upenn.edu>

Having a few spare minutes, and reacting as did Al Mitterling, I offer the
following:
(for entertainment purposes only; the following is the opinion of my home
institution or, possibly, any other rational body...)
|
| 1) When did you start collecting? (how long ago)

 3yrs? About. (or maybe, ten years ago, see below)
To create a class on solar system genesis with actual examples.


| 2) What first interested you about meteorites?

The presence of serpentine minerals, indication that water was present on the
parent bodies (please note this is dominantly in HED class). Something I am
interested in is the link between ultramafic rocks, serpentinization and
tectonic emplacement, and the ecological and social implications/benfits, etc.
of serpentinites. Also, they represent samples of mantle materials that are
impossible to obtain on Earth (core-mantle boundary, etc.)

 
| 3) What was your first meteorite purchase, and from whom?

Bassikounou, Michael Wilde, because I think it is a beautiful stone (no
serpentinites, though)


| 4) How many meteorites or localities do you currently have in
| your collection?

Probably 400 localities, I don't keep track, Microsoft Access does.

 
| 5) If you had to know for insurance purposes, what do you
| value your entire collection at? - in dollars - ballpark
| figure OK, or just say "none of your business".

A lot. Too scary to think about, and I don't think they'll pay off anyway.
(Not in the class of six or seven figures, like a dealer or anything, though)
Waaaay past my budget for aforementioned class.....

| 6) What is your favorite meteorite and why?

D'Orbigny, because I can't pronounce it and it might be from Mercury (oh, no,
let's not start that thread up again...) and Mercury is my ruling sign.....
(oh, wait that's sooo seventies..) Actually, I'm lying, I can pronounce it, I
can even pronounce Muonionalusta, although I can't pronounce Eyjafjallajokull,
I'm not even sure I can spell it (or anything in Gaelic, for that matter..)

Bassikounou, because for some reason I can't explain, I just like the way it
looks. I guess. I don't really have a favorite, they are all specimens to
me....(sacreligious as that may be to a collector...)



| 7) Have you ever found a meteorite in the field?

Yes, in 1999 on a glacier in the high Arctic in Canada (oh, wait, did I just
type that? The Mounties'll be after me now...). Really, it was legitimate
scientific research; I was there to collect a thermochron sequence to date the
uplift rate of the Princess Margarets, and we were discussing the igneous
provinces (as I recall we were in the Jurrasic at the time). I picked up a rock
on the glacier, wondering how it got there. Later, someone pointed out that
things on glaciers are likely to be meteorites, having fallen there. (It's a
small one, like a little pebble...don't get any ideas). On second thought, maybe
I didn't find it there... We got in enough trouble over "stealing Canadian
intellectual heritage" on that trip.... Did visit the Devon site where they
tested the Martian rovers, though. That was pretty cool.


|
| 8) Did you ever get the deal of a lifetime on a meteorite?
| If so, what was it?

Don't think so. Pretty close to retail for everything. Except maybe an Odessa
chunk that I got a pretty good deal on.
I've had a few kind contributions, but I didn't seek them, so they weren't
'deals' I guess. Apparently gave the deal of a lifetime once...

|
| 9) Did you ever go through the ordeal of a lifetime to obtain
| a meteorite? If so, please explain.

Getting back from the glacier was an ordeal. A supposed 12 mile trek was more
like 25. The running gag was, "we need to make it back by nightfall" (this was
July at 80? N lat.). We went up and down mountains, down a 200 foot talus slope
at the bottom of which was a glacial river that we rolled 800 pound rocks into
that vanished instantly beneath the glacier (don't fall in...). One of the field
team twice fell into arctic streams where we had to go fish her out; at one
point the team leader led us into a box canyon which ended in a basalt dike that
we couldn't get around, cut by the glacial river that we couldn't cross, so we
had to climb back up the mountain to get around the canyon (after that, I led,
as I had the GPS). This story does go on, but it occurs to me that this is just
getting back, not actually an effort to find a meteorite, so I'm not really
answering the question...


|
| 10) Have you ever consumed meteoritic material? (If so, how
| or under what circumstances?)

I am made of meteoritic material, aren't you? But, no, I don't eat my specimens
(wouldn't that be cannibalism?).

|
| 11) Does your spouse share your meteorite passion, is
| ambivalent towards it, or resents it?

She has no problem with it, but isn't particularly interested (she is also a
scientist, but with a somewhat different focus)

|
| 12) Have you ever let a bill go unpaid or late to buy a meteorite?

(which Bill? Kies'?) No, of course not, that is what credit cards are for....

 
| 13) A perfectly oriented, fully crusted, baseball-sized,
| lunar meteorite crashes through your roof and lands in your
| lap while you are reading this. It's the most gorgeous
| aesthetically-superior specimen you have ever seen - like
| Lafayette, but better. It legally belongs to you. What do
| you do with it?

In my *lap*? That would make it a ball peen hammer...

As someone else said, I'd core it (because, how do I know it is a lunar, without
classification). Sell the core fragments to Michael Blood and donate the rest to
the Smithsonian for the tax credit. For the rest of my life. I'd slice it up,
but apparently, it is too aesthetic for that.


|
| 14) Statistics have caught up with someone. Anne Hodges will
| no longer be the only documented person to be struck by a
| falling meteorite. Assuming the next person struck could be
| anyone and you could pick that person, who would it be?
| (silly answers only, nothing mean or political)


That guy in Bosnia

|
| 15) You are awarded the honor of selecting one specimen to
| keep from any meteorite collection in the world. What would it be?

Nakhla. (inside joke to Count Diero)

This is a tough one that I would have to think about a long time. At the moment,
because I am trying to digitize Buchwald's irons, I could shoot these out:

Cuba, just because it fell there

Grant - but only the main mass, because it shows just about everything about an
iron.

Ilimaes- wonderful Iron from Chile, where I've spent many a research trip. Next
time I'm down, I intend to search the Atacama (OK, just a *bit* of the Atacama).
I saw a spectacular bolide (approx.7 secs lit, half a dozen fragments) when I
was down there once (no, I didn't chase it, the trajectory put it into the
Pacific Ocean, somewhere North of Tierra del Fuego, in the Humbolt current.)

|
| 16) Have you ever sold or donated your entire collection, and
| then had to rebuild it?

Nope.

|
| 17) Summarize what you think about tektites in one sentence.

I am as interested in effects of meteorites on the Earth as I am in the
meteorites themselves (as well as the effects of the Earth on meteorites)

|
| 18) Which do you prefer - thin sections, whole specimens,
| slices, or endcuts?

Yes.

But I make thin sections out of everything, because I'm interested in the
science more than, say the aesthetics or novelty.


| 19) Do you collect meteorwrongs?

Yes. Except those with fossil blood vessels.
Great things-to show the differences between the two (wrongs and rites).

|
| 20) Have you ever dropped a tiny crumb of a rare meteorite
| and lost it?

I dropped a crumb of Nahkla once, but I can't say I lost it, I kept a cool head.
Found it, too (not my head).


Did I answer them all? Did I pass?

And yes, I am going home now...




David R. Vann, Ph.D.
Department of Earth and Environmental Science
THE UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
240 S. 33rd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6316
drvann at sas.upenn.edu
office: 215-898-4906
FAX: 215-898-0964
|
Received on Thu 29 Jul 2010 06:26:50 PM PDT