[meteorite-list] 5 reasons to record meteorite coordinates

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:52:40 +0100
Message-ID: <006701cac07a$7bca9ea0$07b22959_at_name86d88d87e2>

Jason,

I think we differ in an essential point.

In my opinion the phase in meteoritic science and planetology of sampling
celestial bodies by the means of meteorites to understand their formation,
composition, history and to learn about the solar system and the Earth,
is not yet completed.

At least not yet finished to that degree, that aspects like the
terrestrialization, weathering, type populations, atmospheric flights,
should come to the fore in meteoritic science and the research on the
extraterrestrial properties of the meteorites would take a back seat.

Not a year of the last both decades, were not new meteorites with absolutely
new stunning information were recovered.
Unfortunately - I know, that you might be not so firm in meteoritic
statistics - such exceptional meteorites can be only found, if a very large
number of new meteorites are found.

You're more or less suggesting that we should leave that to upcoming
generations.
You have to excuse my impatience, but I'm living now.
And the scientists too.

And if we would leave the recovery to upcoming generations, I simply have no
faith, that this will happen.
The official expeditions are tending to a zero-point. In the 1980ies -
1990ies there were still some last ones, but then?
If such an important and wealthy meteorite country like Australia, isn't
able to set up a single searching expedition in the last 15 years.
(Before were three, two of them sponsored by the Europeans).

And Sahara - most productive meteorite area on the globe, before Antarctica.
Nothing there. Euromet tried in once - without success.
And else? Maybe a few of the Ilfaehgs - I'm not so well informed. That's
all.
Well and in USA - remember that some on the list were somewhat astonished,
that only Art Ehlmann found his way to the West-strewnfield?

The only regular expedition to recover hot desert meteorites on Earth,
Is the Suisse-Oman-team - according there website 3-6 people, 3-6 weeks once
per year.

In Europe, in Russia, in Australia the institutes moan about the blatant
lack of funds. In all Sahara countries, without now Morocco, and in Oman no
meteorite departments exist at all.
China with its enormous surface - there are virtually no meteorites
recovered.

So there is not much reason to adhere the illusion, that the field work and
the recovery work the private sector did, will ever done in future by
institutional expeditions.

Well and you obviously are not aware, how the very most meteorites aside
Antarctica found their way into the labs and the museums.

For 200 years there was a symbiosis between the private people who found
meteorites. Make your stats, note that in the recent 20 years the private
sector had let the find rates explode.

Now all these new laws mean nothing than, if you don't believe in an end,
nothing else than a huge hiatus in meteorite history and meteorite science.

In my eyes absolutely unnecessary.

I won't argue about single falls with you.
Check all the falls from Ourique on - who had found them, who had collected
the tkws and who made the documentation and publications about the fall
documentation, if there exist any- than you'll see.

Semarkona and so on... btw. aren't you know at an university? Try to get a
non NWA-bracchinite - unfortunately all were found in Australia, much luck
in asking for some from down-under.

Joking aside. Can't you use once the Meteoritical Bulletin database?
Can't you see what happened in the last 10-20 years?
The privates produced several Semarkonas, Orgueils and so on - by far more
than ever were found in history and ever will be found in Antarctica.
Some hunters and dealers brought to light each of them much more weight and
much more different meteorites of a rare type, than the 33 years Japanese,
Chinese, American and European Antarctic campaigns yielded.
(And at what for little money for the institutes!).

You can't be serious, if you would deny the importance of these recoveries
and the advances for science they meant.


>Well, it's keeping some out.

What do you mean? It's keeping all out. And especially these, who are
responsible for us today knowing, that there are so many meteorites found in
Oman at all. Same applies to Sahara.

And - such laws, preventing any private possession or even hunting lead to
the fact, that first of all nobody is setting a foot outside the door to
find meteorites at all - and that those, who will do it still, will tend
obscure their finds and will misreport coordinates, because their finds have
no legal status anymore - therefore also for your basic concern such laws
are not useful.

>And many more lunar and martian and rare meteorites were found because of
>the documentation.

So is it o.k. to say to these Martian and Moon finders: Thank you for having
feathered our nest, to have enlightened us, that in Oman there are such
things to be found and where,
Here you have our wet handclasp (as we say in German), from now on you're
criminal and you have to stay out.
Not my concept of being well-educated.

I tell you, what for lunaites and Martians we would have, without the
privateers.

19 lunaites from Antarctica, 5.5kgs.
That's all - maybe you want to count in the 200g of SaU169 - but it wouldn't
have found, cause without the private pioneers we wouldn't have any official
hunting party in Oman.

Well and with help of the private hunters, we have 50kgs more, and 48
additional different lunaites more.

The Antarctic teams needed 18 years to find their 19 lunaites,
the private hunters 13 years + 7 for the Calcalong before.


With the Martian we would have Nakhla, Chassigny, Lafayette, Governador,
Shergotty - for Zagami the insitutes would have to hope, that it wouldn't be
national treasure... at least a private dealer is responsible for a good
part of the distribution of Zagami..
(With the other you have to check, how they were acquired).
And 15 finds from Antartica. SaU 094 was a later find in the strewnfield of
SaU 005-150, recovered, documented and harvested by the private hunters.
Private hunters 33 different Martians.

Weight of the 15 Antarctic ones 26.7kg - time 33 years.
Weight of the 33 private finds 33.2kg - time 13 years.
Weight of the 6 "historics" 39.1kg - time 195 years.

Uuuh, seems almost, that the private sector could have donated more lunar
material for free to institutes, than all official efforts in meteoritic
history of mankind yielded....

For me, these finds are an advance.

And many dealers and hunters see it as a duty of their profession to create
finds of meteorites of special scientific significance at all, to deliver
them to science and to make them available at rates, that any institute can
afford to do research on that material at will.
Seen the pblications, I dare to state, the many more scientists were able to
work on the hot desert finds made by the private sector than worked on the
finds of the official sector.
 

Btw sometimes I get the feeling, when I'm raeding your emails, that you
might have some difficulties to accept the commercial side of meteorite
hunting.

The desert boom in Sahara and Oman and with it that great step forward in
meteorite science was only possible, because the finders were allowed to
recover their expenses and to earn money in selling their finds.
Else we wouldn't know, that there are meteorites at all to be found
and if you don't allow that, well than you'll get Australia.

(Huhuhu, Orgueil was dealt in 19th century around 100$/g, one of the
extremely rare cases, that then a type was cheaper than the same type today)


It would interesting, how you would estimate the number of "good" hunters in
the US-deserts and how high in your opinion the number of hunters there is,
not caring for documentation.


In NWA we haven't the infrastructure that all the nameless hunters could be
instructed, how to document their finds and to equip them with GPS-devices
and cameras. In Algeria anyway it wouldn't be possible, cause due to the new
laws no meteorite trade isn't allowed anymore.
And else, the meteorite prices of the NWAs are still to low, that such a
task could be financed.

Well.
I don't understand you fully - if you want better documented meteorite
finds, just go to your university, delineate a research project, apply for
funds, go on the hunt.
Or establish a cooperation with an Algerian university and hunt there to
make it better.
Don't tell: I have no time or there is no money.
This we hear all the time and these are the excuses all institutes are
making for so many years. Also these, who are strong advocates for
protectionist laws.

>From nothing nothing comes.
No sweet without sweat.

These truisms any hunter or dealer has internalized.

Well in the end again.

We have different opinions (and that's o.k.).

For me it's more important, that a scientists has at all a sample to put in
his microprobe.
For you it's more important to preserve field information than to recover
meteorites.

You are more interested in the terrestrial history of a meteorite.
I'm more interested in that, what a meteorite tells of those heights, we
never will be able to access - and how that all haf happened with the solar
system, the Earth, the life....


Best,
Martin


PS: shht remarks: Before Almahata Neuschwanstein was the best documented
fall ever. An exemplar of a perfect cooperation of private sector and
science.
The scientists made available every data about the possible strewnfield to
anyone who wanted to search - and only with the manpower of these private
hunters and laymen the three stones could finally have been recovered.

Task forces for new possible falls...
Jason - Romania, the poorhouse of Europe. And not directly a typical
meteorite country.
Why could it happen there, that with the possible meteorite dropper 3 years
ago (was't it at Comanesti somewhere) you had the next day there police and
military combing the area for a possible meteorite?
Why that isn't possible elsewhere?
Why not e.g. USA or in Switzerland, one of the richest country in the World,
where Suisse scientists don't get tired to trumpet what for an invaluable
national and natural heritage the meteorites of Oman would be and where a
kind of law also concerning meteorites does exist.
Why there again the private enthusiasts had to do all the field work with
the Lake Constance fireball - in alerting radio stations and newspapers to
find eye- and earwitnesses, in doing interviews with them, in collecting
data, in trying to triangulate and to narrow the possible strewnfield down
and in spending days and weeks searching in the field?
Why no Suisse meteorite scientist felt a need to occupy himself with trying
to find the first possible Suisse fall after 80 years?

And like that, it's quite everywhere.

 

     

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Jason Utas [mailto:meteoritekid at gmail.com]
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 10. M?rz 2010 14:45
An: Martin Altmann; Meteorite-list
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] 5 reasons to record meteorite coordinates

Martin, All,

> Not that different from Antarctic meteorites, which have lost their
original
> context by the transportation by the ice.
> Nevertheless they aren't considered useless and good sums of public money
> are spent to recover them.

Right, but you're comparing apples and oranges. Yes, they're still
valuable. No matter how many times I say it, you seem to find it
necessary to reiterate it.
But you're comparing meteorites from antarctica which are transported
naturally, resulting in the following facts:
1) There's nothing we can do scientifically to deduce where they fell.
 The ice has erased that information. Beyond knowing that they fell
somewhere 'upflow,' we know nothing about where they fell: we
couldn't.
2) Where they fell is in this case not as relevant. Because
glaciation collects meteorites from many places together into one
place, knowing where they fell wouldn't help you to find more. At the
same time, the scientists do keep track of where, on which ice field,
each meteorite was found. Hence we know that many Antarctic stones
are paired.

What we don't see is scientists simply assigning every Antarctic
meteorite a number independent of where it was found. They are still
given prefixes so that pairings may be assigned with some accuracy.
Apparently location, as much as it can be discerned, is still relevant
to them.

> I am glad, that we have NWAs - where would be in meteoritics, if we
wouldn't
> have had them?

A bunch of meteorites sitting in the desert with determinable
coordinates waiting to be picked up.

You can always put off picking up a meteorite for a few hundred years,
and in most cases, not much will happen to it.

But once you pick it up and walk away without noting the find
location, there's just nothing you can do to get it back.


> In my opinion in that find context question
> one can't compare meteorites with vertebrate fossils or archaeological
> things.
> Because other than these object, a meteorite always offers information
> beyond and independently from its terrestrial history:

Fossils give us a biological and evolutionary history of life, which,
although it overlaps with Earth's geologic chronology, operates rather
independently. True, it's easier to date fossils based on geologic
continuity, but we don't inherently value fossils because of what they
tell us about the geologic processes that preserved and altered them;
we value fossils generally for what they tell us about what life
consisted of in eons past.
But knowing where a fossil was found is quite relevant to its
provenance, no? Even if you can date it without knowing where it was
found, and you can get the biological/evolutionary information out of
it, it's still a good thing to know where a fossil was found. How
else do you find more?
You're just making an arbitrary distinction between terrestrial and
extraterrestrial history. Arbitrary.

> It tells us stories from other celestial bodies and the solar system.

Fossils, life.

> And it does that even if it's only a fragment of a stone. If not too
small,
> each meteoritic fragment is a pars pro toto of the whole fall.

Just as a complete fossil is a part of an ecological mosaic that we
will never wholly uncover, and each fragment of bone, a chip off of a
tile in that picture of the past.

> Different it is, if you have a fragment of a dino-bone or an artefact,
> With them the essential piece of information has to be gained from the
find
> context.

Only because isotopic dating is much harder on earth. If you could
determine the age of such fossils independently, they would be
perfectly analogous to meteorites; they would be biologically
relevant, but without a geologic context, you simply wouldn't know
where to find more, and maybe find the rest of the fossilized
organism.

2008 TC3 is the perfect example - if nomads had gone out and found the
meteorites without noting coordinates, what would we know about the
fall? Well, if they brought the stones out as a new fall, we might
think them paired, especially after terrestrially dating the stones,
but the fact of the matter is that, assuming only a few stones were
recovered, we might get all ureilites, or all EH, or H. Knowing where
the stones were found and conducting an intensive search in the area
is the only reason that we have as comprehensive an idea of that
asteroid's composition as we do now, and that's a fact.

> And also the circumstances are somewhat different.
> If you find a fossil, you can ram your flag into the site, because you
know,
> where one fossil was found, there are more. And as they were preserved in
> the soil for dozens of million years, you have all the time of the
> worrrrrrld to excavate the site.

And if you find a meteorite in a certain place and flag the location,
you might well find more of the same type nearby.
Different processes, same thing. There may be more fossils near the
one you found, and there might be more meteorites near the one you
found. But you have to know where they were both found to look for
more.

> Note also, what for efforts are undertaken, to excavate archaeological
> sites. There are some, where a professor's lifetime wasn't enough to do
all
> the documentation.

The method is different, true - most meteorites don't require
excavation, but...some do.
And with fossils, you have examination - with meteorites we have
analysis. There are still many secrets contained in Orguiel and
Murchison - more than will be unravelled in my lifetime.
I see little difference.

> Such efforts do not exist in the World of meteorites.

We know everything to know about Semarkona, Ibitira, Kaidun, Orgueil,
and all meteorites?
No. Studies will continue to discover more information and to
interpret it correctly.
That's the real difference between studying fossils and meteorites.
Meteorites are a means of figuring out how things formed geologically.
 On earth, we've got that (geology) generally figured out, and we
study fossils to figure out how life formed evolutionarily. We know
enough about fossils, biology, etc., to know how things generally
worked, though. With meteorites, we know less about how things came
into existence and more about the chronology afterwards.
Kind of like how we are still trying to figure out how life first came
into existence, but we know how things generally worked after that.
Understanding phases of metamorphism generally isn't a problem.
Figuring out where Ureilites came from, on the other hand....not so
easy.

> Other than Jason, I don't think, that the very surfaces of the US-deserts
> and the dry lake beds remain absolutely unchanged for thousands and
> thousands of years.

The lakes around here dried up in the pleistocene about 15,000 years
ago. They've been periodically wet and dry in the meanwhile, but we
do know that some meteorites in the American Southwest (e.g. Gold
Basin) have been around for nearly 20,000 years. So while they might
not be unchanged, they're still here - at least some of them.

> And if once a stone disappeared in the ground, it's
> quite impossible to find it.

Hardly. Half of the meteorites being found out here are being found
by metal-detectorists, buried.
Of course, a lot of those have been found in known
strewnfields....which illustrates my point.
Franconia. One find. Can you imagine if the finder was not a
qualified meteorite hunter and did not record where he found it? The
loss? No Franconia on the market, no Sacramento Wash meteorites, no
Buck Mountain Wash meteorites, Palo Verde Mine, etc.
Same goes for Gold Basin and Hualapi Wash, White Elephant, Temple Bar, etc.
Knowing where one was found led to the discovery of thousands of
pieces of those meteorites - and to others in the area that would
never otherwise have been found.
Thanks to the fact that hunters in California recorded that meteorites
were found at Superior Valley, we also have an acapulcoite, and Rob
Matson's CK4 from Lucerne, as well as his E-chondrite from Roach Dry
Lake.
Having a strewnfield makes hunting more worthwhile; without it, you'd
have to be hoping to make that random cold find, which many people
aren't patient enough to do.

So, it took knowing where other meteorites were found to find those stones.


> See also Oman, where after each rain, new
> meteorites appear on the surface. And Sahara was once a green place - not
so
> long ago, at least most of the NWAs, if I think about their average
> terrestrial ages, still had witnessed that period.

True.

> In non-desert regions, a meteorite will be covered by vegetation often in
> less than a year, after a couple of years it will be fully disappear in
the
> humus layer.

Most likely.

> With fresh falls, it is in meteorite science consensus and state of art,
> that the specimens shall be recovered rather in hours than in days.
> Task forces to recover new falls (compare it btw. to the emergency
> excavation teams, if on a construction site an archaeological object is
> found) timely seem not to exist in most of the prohibitive countries.

Australia, yes, Canada...no teams, but scientists found Buzzard Coulee
and Grimsby pieces. Ummm...organized teams, I agree, are hard to come
by - but they typically do chase falls down one way or another. It's
not like hunters go out in organized teams, though, so I don't see why
you're saying we're better than the scientists.

> And in almost all cases, where a fireball promises to be a dropper, the
> essential field work to make it possible at all, that a stone might be
> recovered, is done by the private collectors.

No. Part of the reason why Whetstone was so amazing was because a
collector/hunter actually tracked it down without the find being made
by locals or radar information from scientists. It was the first time
that anyone has done that in many, many years. Private collectors
often recover stones, but the finding of the fall is typically done
due in large part to scientists, and not to us.

> That laws would help or would be necessary to preserve coordinates is in
my
> opinion a spurious discussion.
> First of all, most desert meteorites and the most significant desert finds
> in USA, I guess, are found by experienced meteorite hunters, well knowing
> about the importance of find documentation.
> (In fact, as

And some aren't. Temple Bar was found somewhere near the Gold Basin
strewnfield...or something like that. Somewhere in northwest Arizona.
 But this is kind of a side-issue. You seem to be saying that most
hunters here are doing a good thing by documenting our finds. And I
would like to point out that if we didn't, we wouldn't find a fraction
of the stones that we actually do find.

> Secondly. (The DaG-meteorites were documented too)
> The Oman finds were perfectly documented by the private hunters from the
> beginning on. With in situ photos, GPS coordinates, description of the
> surrounding soil, day of find, number of pieces, exact weights and later
> complete classification, even some strewnfields were mapped and published
> and also many more scientists around the world were able to do research on
> the finds, as it is today the case with the "official" finds, as well as
by
> far more of these specimens enrich the institutional collections around
the
> world and are partially on public display, than the "official" ones
> ?- and many teams of these private hunters were led by professional and
> examined geologists.

And many more lunar and martian and rare meteorites were found because
of the documentation. Fact.

> Nevertheless the laws came and additionally with almost every opportunity
it
> was agitated that existing laws should be better enforced to eliminate the
> successful finders and pioneers out.

Well, it's keeping some out. But you're talking about the application
of restrictive laws where hunters by and large already record relevant
information. I'm talking about doing what we can where that
information is being lost so that it might be preserved - and recorded
later.

> To break laws may be a peccadillo for Jason as an occasional spare time
> hunter,
> professional hunters and those, who generate the lion share of the annual
> World meteorite output can't work like that.

I don't know what you're saying here. If the laws state only that I
can hunt for meteorites, that they belong to the US government, and
that I cannot sell or trade my finds, then I have never broken one of
these laws.
But you seem to confuse this with the notion that the world meteorite
output would drop if all hunters were to do this as well. I agree
that there is no system in place for this to happen in NWA, but the
time and effort it would take to do so would be easily doable if the
hunters out there had the necessary equipment - and if we were to
prohibit them from hunting so that qualified people might go there an
hunt with GPS' and the like, well, yes, output would fall, but from a
scientific perspective, we would get more out of *it in the long run.*
 We would know where particular meteorites were found, and we would
have much more detailed strewnfield maps, and more pieces of the rare
meteorites than have been found. In the long run.

You have NEVER addressed this idea, and always say the same thing in
response to this issue and I'm getting fed up with your dancing around
the point.

Jason


>
>
>
>
> PS.
> And in general, we should abstain from iterate from these myths about
> profit. Can me anyone show a hunter, who became rich and wealthy in
selling
> his US-desert finds?
> I don't know any, you?
>
> PSS: No laws at all have proved to be the most efficient and
cost-effective
> way for any country to produce the most finds, the largest tkws and that
> these end in the institutes.
>
> So I suggest: No laws at all, at best, a right for preemption.
>
> That meteorite finders are rewarded for their work, performance, service -
> is not only a matter of course it is an imperative of ethical behaviour.
> Full stop.
>
> Confiscation with financial compensation I think wouldn't work, as the
> official side would be overextended to determine a market value.
> In fact already today only a few very scientists and clerks seems to have
an
> idea of meteorite pricings - else we wouldn't have all these new laws and
> else the institutes would buy like fools, to take advantage from the now
> still so unseen low price level.
>
> Second possibility. 50-50 if state is land owner,
> or in general 50% for the country, no matter where the meteorite was
found.
> The latter will be possible, because of the strong legal protection of
> property in free governments under the law, maybe only in non-democratic
or
> communist countries or other dictatorships.
> That of course would make meteorites more expensive for all others,
private
> collectors, scientists and curators.
>
> Huhuhu.... if I take Wietrzno-Bobrka...then in Poland in every fifth
> generation a meteorite is found.
> It must be a very very happy country that it hasn't any other problems
grave
> enough, that they had the leisure to invent a law for meteorites....
>
> Maybe a self-regulating system? If now less than a new meteorite per year
is
> found in Australia, maybe the laws there are recognized to be obsolete and
> will be cancelled?
>
> Panama, Israel, Liberia... they haven't any meteorite yet.
> Perhaps they should pass a law of preventive character, for the case that
> one day a meteorite will fall there?
>
> Any innocent bystander of that global meteorite laws debate would come to
> the conclusion, that this all is a very very silly thing, I suppose.
>
>
>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Carl
's
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 10. M?rz 2010 00:17
> An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] 5 reasons to record meteorite coordinates
>
>
>
> Hi Carl,
>
> Another way to see how important co-ordinates are is just to look at
what's
> happened to the NWA meteorites. Nobody knows where they are found, so many
> pairings and unclassified stones!
>
> Good luck on the classification of your new find.
>
> Carl2
>
>
>>I don't yet understand why people put so much importance on find
> co-ords and strewnfields... I
>
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Received on Wed 10 Mar 2010 12:52:40 PM PST