[meteorite-list] Fwd: 5 reasons to record meteorite coordinates

From: Jason Utas <meteoritekid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:11:47 -0700
Message-ID: <93aaac891003181911g75b01479r79a571f8c313089a_at_mail.gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jason Utas <meteoritekid at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] 5 reasons to record meteorite coordinates
To: Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>, Meteorite-list
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>


> I'd ask you not to interpret in my posts or to impute to me, things I never
> had said.

Like what?

>>Barring the inconceivable supposition
>
> See. You take everything for granted. That meteorites will appear more or
> less from alone. Unfortunately some protectionists are taken in too by this
> wrong view.

You're saying that some big change is going to happen that makes
people stop looking for meteorites.
I say that things are going to stay generally how they are at the
moment, with respect to people looking for meteorites.
Seeing as there is no reason to believe otherwise, I really don't see
your logic.

You're like that prophet standing on the street-corner proclaiming
doom and gloom.
I hear you, but...there's nothing to back it up. ?There's no reason to
suppose that people are going to stop hunting for meteorites the world
over.

So...I disagree.

> NWA, Oman and also U.S.-desert finds are no unavoidable matter of course.
> (Neither most of the observed falls, neither the tkws of old finds).

"No unavoidable matter..."
I don't know what you mean by this.

> Why do we have NWA at all. Because some people had as early as in the
> 1980ies the idea, that not only in the cold deserts of Antarctica meteorites
> could be identified, but maybe also in suitable areas in hot deserts.
> So they tried there luck in Sahara (some of these very first pioneers were
> Germans) et voil? it worked.

Right...

> And because it worked, more came to Sahara and later the NWA-Boom started
> and before also some privateers were trying if it would work in Oman too.
> This all was NO coerciveness nor a logical consequence of history,
> cause meteorites weren't that commonly known or popular, like in the times
> of internet, you grew up in.

Well, I was around for a few years before the NWA rush, but yeah, I
know how it was quieter back then.

> Also if you would check the annual find rates of the U.S.-finds you will
> easily see, that there is no continuous annual find rate, but a steep
> ascent,
> starting in just these years where meteorites were for the first time
> getting a more popular attention (caused by the private sector, the
> DaG-finds, internet and other media..).

Well, probably not due to DaG finds, unless you're talking about rocks
like 262, which didn't really do much for the general public, but I
agree that increasing find rates and accessibility, aided by the
internet, did allow for the level of interest that the field has
today.

> This all was possible, cause meteorite trade and meteorite hunting was free.
> And to continue that all also in future, will be only possible, if it will
> stay free or will become free again.

Meteorite hunting isn't free. ?If I find a rare stone, I'm giving 1/5
or 20g of it away (not so important for larger stones, but still - if
I find a lunar, that's $20k+ gone). ?And if the Smithsonian says they
want it, well - I'm right out of luck.

>>I thought we were talking about reasons why keeping
>
> Embedded in the discussion about a possible change in US-laws,
> prohibiting hunting on states land. Combined with the question, whether this
> would be a good thing or not - because some supposed, that private hunting
> would be harmful - where you're position seemed to be, yes it is, cause some
> hunters (without you being able to number, how many or how many finds would
> be concerned) wouldn't take coordinates.

So you've conceded the point that we should record coordinates then?
Or are you simply changing the subject entirely to ownership laws.
Well, either way, I guess we're talking about this now.

>>"private collectors buy more
>>meteorites than academic institutions
>>if you're talking about the scientists
>>being ungrateful, etc, it's simply not true
>
> Not with a single word I said that.
> I underlined - and so I did for years now - that there always existed a
> perfect symbiosis between the science sector doing the research on
> meteorites and the private sector, delivering the meteorites.

Ok.

> And that this symbiosis is now for the first time in history endangered
> by two reasons:
> 1) the haphazardly introducing of laws in so many countries, making it
> impossible for the private sector to do its work and to recover new
> meteorites.

Hm. ?I would say that a symbiosis is merely a system that allows two
competing or contrasting things to exist simultaneously, for the good
of both. ?If that is the case, and governments like Australia's or
Canada's do reimburse finders for their recoveries, then I see no real
problem. ?Ideally, yes, I would like to hold onto my finds as a
collector, but when what is perhaps the majority of hunters sell their
finds, I see no real difference if the government is willing to pay a
competitive amount. ?The incentive is still there - less of a
capitalist one, but if anything, more of a nationalistic goal.

> 2) The dramatic cutback of the budgets of so many important meteoritic
> research facilities and museums in so many countries and especially during
> the last 10 years.

So long as there are still facilities to do the work, I see little
difference. ?In a capitalist system, yes, fewer options means higher
prices, but scientific policies and standards aren't being changed or
compromised. ?So you have fewer places to send your samples, but the
results are still just as good, and the requirements that they ask for
aren't changing - and most look to be well funded.

So while you may lament the loss of your European labs, again, I see
no reason for this to be the death-knell of the field of meteoritics.
It just doesn't make sense for you to assume that it would mean that.

> Because for me, these are the real and the most urgent problems I see in
> meteoritics
> And not, who finds the meteorites.

Well, if proper documentation isn't being carried out, then both are
problems. ?Well, I don't particularly mind that European labs have
been going out of business - it has no real effect on my
classifications or opportunities for research should I choose to
pursue meteoritics, so...that makes one issue for me and two for you.

> If point 2) would be solved - we'd have no discussions about private or
> public funded hunting or laws at all.

I still don't see why you say that prohibitive hunting laws have made
the European labs go out of business.
I said this before and you ignored it - I'll say it again. ?Laws that
confiscate finds or provide government compensation for meteorites
have *nothing* to do with the lack of funding, public and private, for
institutions in Europe.

>> What? ?Finds being confiscated
>
> Oman. There you need a permission to hunt. Permissions are meanwhile only
> issued to the small Suisse-Omani-Team. And if you think back to the incident
> some years ago, where some hunters were caught, there their finds were
> confiscated.

And since then, tens, if not hundreds of teams still continue to go
there illegally - a new Lunar was found a few days ago, as you can see
from the most recent picture of the day. ?Thousands of meteorites are
still being found.
Again, I don't see what this has to do with European labs closing, though.

> India. Meteorites belong to the state. India btw. is quite the oldest
> meteorite country of the world. Calcutta had a good meteorite collection
> long before London started. And you see, where now the research is in India.
> Almost no publications. Privateers were hindered to make a professional
> documentation about the Sulagiri fall. And the only attention Indian
> meteoritics gets, happens because every year they find extraterrestrial
> blood cells raining from space or they find blood cells in meteorites.....

Meteorites are being found and recovered by the state, and are being
kept relatively safe and intact. ?The reason that no publications are
coming out of India is because the quality of higher education is
lacking, and they lack the research money and high-tech equipment
necessary for modern meteoritics.
Just look at how many meteorites have been found and recovered by the
state! More falls in India in the past decade than in *any* other
country, all recovered and conserved by the government.
You're simply wrong...

> Australia.
> There you have territories, where automatically each find belongs to the
> Crown.

When we visited Australia a few years ago, it actually depended on the
territory; some territories claimed them, others allowed private
ownership. ?That never really stopped people from hunting in the more
lenient states. ?What did stop people from hunting was the prohibitive
export laws. ?And, I agree, most hunters willing to make the trip were
serious enough to document their finds quite well, so the loss of
their time and effort spent hunting undoubtedly slowed the rate of
finds many times over, to the point where very few are being found
today.

But I fail to see why this is such a problem.
Yes, I would prefer that the laws be more lenient. ?But those rocks
have been sitting out there for upwards of 50,000 years in some cases
- if these meteorites of ours are so scientifically relevant, they'll
be waiting for us when we find them, be it in a century, ten
centuries, or ten thousand years.

> Algeria, one would have to check - but it won't look good, if you remind
> what for an immense theatre they made.

True, the looking would be harder, but the meteorites *are* there.
Either way, I don't see why you bring it up.

> China
> If meteorites are covered under the relics act. There the requirements are
> so narrow, that private ownership is only a very theoretically possibility,
> and in reality nearly impossible. (And if an owner wants to sell, he has to
> sell strictly to Chinese institutions).

Not from what I see and hear. ?Take a look at things like Fukang,
Nantan, etc. ?And if you want some new irons, Juancheng, ?Suizhou,
Jilin, or any other fall, let me know - I can put you in contact with
some folks.

> Remember the fireball in Africa recently?
> Was it South Africa or Uganda? Immediately, before any one could have the
> idea to hunt that fall, you could read in the media: It belongs to da state.

Who in Uganda has the education or means necessary to go and hunt that
down for money? ?Now you're just not thinking about things
logically... ?If someone where to go try to find that meteorite, they
would probably be from a state institution anyways - and if they
weren't, they probably wouldn't know that such a thing had much value
anyways. ?Just look at what happened to the Mbale stones. ?They went
and found hundreds of them - and not to sell.....

> United States of America,
> Partially and if it would be true, what the discussion was about, that in
> some states the meteorites on public land belongs to the state.

Maybe, but this law, if it is in place, has only been enforced
once, ever, to my knowledge. Old Woman.

> And others.
> Plus many countries, which secure the grasp on meteorites by laws,
> allowing to mandate that a find has to be handed over to the state,
> with a compensation for the finder/owner.
> Though the finder has no influence on the height of compensation.
> Factually that is a compulsory sale enforced by the state.
> And the finder, if he gets 100 bucks for his 10kg of Martian, has to swallow
> that.
> Denmark, maybe Switzerland and meanwhile many others.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/15/danish-turnover-meteorites/

http://fernlea.tripod.com/moss.html

As for Switzerland, I really can't say - not much has been found there
recently, but I doubt it is because people have stopped hunting due to
laws. ?It's not a place that's conducive to finding meteorites; the
only meteorite every found by someone actually looking for meteorites
there was...Langwies, found by Walter Zeitschel in a glacial moraine.
So far as I know, there just haven't been too many bright fireballs in
the area recently.

But just saying that there are no meteorites being found there now
because of laws is...well, it's a statement that has nothing backing
it up. ?A significant portion of meteorites outside of
NWA/Oman/Antarctica are still being found by non-collectors - if not
most! ?True, we typically buy them from the finders, and so they are
"recovered" by various dealers, but the field would get on fairly well
without us.

>>Even if it does happen, meteorites still escape.
>
> Jason, this is an by all means inacceptable position.

Well, I think your position is ridiculous, so I guess we'll just have
to agree to disagree.

> To say: Ya, there will be always some, who won't care that much about laws
> or to say: Yes, there might be laws, but they aren't controlled or they
> won't be enforced.
> And therefore the meteorites will always come to our labs.

You would rather recover meteorites quickly so as to pick them up
while laws still permit it, destroying scientific data in the process?
?Think about that. ?Perhaps if we passed somewhat lenient laws
requiring, say, a permit (and evidence of responsible scientific
practice), to hunt for meteorites, we could postpone such laws from
getting passed, since we could be reasonably sure that that
information wasn't being irresponsibly erased.
That, in my opinion, would be ideal.

No control doesn't work, because you wind up with things like
Franconia where there are now...no one knows how many stones found,
and no one knows how many falls they came from - I personally
purchased several "Palo Verde Mine" stones and, from a cursory
examination, I see at least two, and probably three distinct
meteorite falls represented by five small stones.

Five small stones from *somewhere* in the Franconia strewnfield, and
we will *never* know where they were found.

> You as a spare time hunter may think, that isn't a problem.
> A professional hunter or a hunter generating many finds and important finds,
> can't work like that.

A professional hunter probably keeps impeccable records of where she
has found meteorites so that s/he knows where to look next. ?Or do you
know anyone who goes to Oman with no idea of where to hunt or where
any meteorites have been found there?
And from a professional standpoint, well, I guess you're going to have
to seriously question Thomas Grau's motives for chasing down that CM2,
because according to you, he had no reason to do it. ?He "can't work
like that."

> And a scientist can't work like that.

Well, it's actually better for the scientists; with such laws in
place, they get more material to work with.

> If you'd like to look beyond your backyard,
> the museums around the world are being plastered since years with calls for
> return or compensations of objects of arts, artefacts, antiques,
> manuscripts, fossils. It's meanwhile a whole branch of the lawyer's
> industry.

Right...but not for meteorites.

> Theoretically we have this problem already with meteorites too,
> in such countries like Australia and Canada for example, which gave to
> meteorites the wrong legal status and gave them the status of a movable
> heritage according the UNESCO convention of 1970 and which have ratified
> UNIDROIT. ?If for example India would claim its Semarkona back from Perth or
> Ontario, they can get severe troubles.

I guess it might cause some trouble, but it's not happening, so I'm
not sure what the issue is.
Just because it's happening in other branches of science doesn't mean
it will happen with us; and if it did, it wouldn't matter. ?Even *if*
it happened,
the end result would be India in control the supply of Semarkona and
institutions in other
countries would have to trade with them instead of Australia or Canada
to get some. ?Big deal.

> And not theoretically, but already happening, we have already the problem,
> that many institutes, also some in USA, can't do the research, they would
> like to do or the museums can't acquire the meteorites anymore they need or
> want, because they fear, that with all these new laws, the origin and the
> legal status of the meteorites they want could cause problems.

Some are saying they do care, some not - regardless, are you
questioning these countries' rights to meteorites that have fallen on
their soil and were removed? ?Do you really think that the Egyptian
artifacts taken out of tombs or plundered Grecian artifacts belong in
the British Museum, the Getty, etc? ?I personally don't care very
much, but I do know for a fact that meteorites fall easily under the
category of items that were removed from fledgling countries by
scientists from places like the US and other better-developed European
states, and I find it very hard to choose sides in such a
debate.

After all, if Canada or Australia are willing to chase down a
meteorite that's been illegally exported, surely they should return
meteorites from/for other countries for which the same is true...

> Best example - many institutes can't take advantage of the NWA finds,
> Not because they would be illegal, but because they FEAR they could be
> illegal. (A wrong fear, as we all know, that the NWAs are perfectly legal).

Well, maybe, maybe not. ?Many meteorites from NWA that I know of are
from Algeria (or at least the finders say they are from there). ?Maybe
they're lying, or maybe the stones are actually illegally exported.
Who knows...

> Hence the museums, the research institutes and the hunters,
> they URGENTLY need legal security.

Well, the ones that are scared don't because they're not accepting the
material.
They're safe.

> To keep everything under the blanket, huhuhu, nobody will say something,
> is simply not acceptable and can come on the long run to a bad end.

It's not. ?Plenty of places *do* analyze NWA's, Oman stones, etc. ?No
one seems to be doing anything about it.

>>Morocco. ?How restrictive are the laws?
>
> See above. Perfectly legal.
> But still how long?
> If I read the title of last years first public meteorite exhibition in
> Agadir (equipped also form the private sector):
> Meteorites ?"HERITAGE from the sky"....
> And if I see, that the president of the Meteoritical Society stated after
> the Casablanca Workshop - that he would welcome or he would see the desert
> finds in future under the control of the desert countries..

RIght, I wasn't asking that or even talking about it in that respect -
way to use a
quote of mine out of context.
I know that it's legal in Morocco, but the point is that perhaps they
should be somewhat more restrictive to preserve the find information
that we are losing daily. ?Though I'm sure that you as a dealer
wouldn't like to contend with the higher prices that would result...or
the lesser material that you would have to sell.

> ...then the meteoritic World should be highly alarmed.

Probably, yeah. Prices would go up. I'd be peeved, merely as a collector.
As a scientist, though...it would be the *better* thing to do.

> Because an Australia is very quickly created,
> ..but a new NWA-paradise after the old will be lost, not.

As best I can tell, you're talking about the laws here.
To which I can only respond from my own perspective. ?Places like
Australia and NWA, natural repositories for meteorites, are not made
overnight. ?They have been many thousands of millennia in the making.
NWA, in my opinion, has already been "lost." ?So much unscientific,
unrecorded hunting has gone on there that a significant portion of the
find information has been lost for good. ?Australia is doing better;
while many meteorites have been found there, they are generally well
documented, and we have some useful find/strewnfield information from
the country.

Science would be better off in the long run with more countries with
laws like Australia's.

As I keep saying, the meteorites aren't going anywhere, and if they
continue to be scientifically important, we will continue to hunt for
them, one way or another.

>> run here or in Europe, so...not much
>> to worry about.
>
> How premature you can be.
> Meteoritics was always highly international.
> Do you think the major collections of the World and with them meteorite
> science could have started or develop at all, if they would have collected
> only their national finds? Vienna, London, Paris, Moscow, Smithonian...
> I hope your studies contain also some lessons about the history of your
> field. Learn who a Schreibers, a Chladni, a Daubree, a Krinov, a Cohen, a
> Paneth and so many else were.

Well, yes, but only because the scientific world with regard to
meteorites was divided between Europe and the US. ?If it is shifting
to the US, there is nothing in history that says that this will lead
to a decline in the science - all it tells us is that more will be
done here for some time (well, here and in Japan). ?There is no
precedent that suggests that because funding has been low in Europe,
the science will fail. ?I'll say it again - I can see why you might be
worried, and at the very least, annoyed - I wouldn't want to have to
send samples internationally for analysis either, but...sucks for you.
?The science of it here seems to be expanding if anything, so I'm not
worried.

> And today it is a matter of course, that on the most important new finds
> immediately scientists in labs around the world are working together.
> And we all are glad and happy, that still such capacities do exist.

Indeed.

Regards,

Jason

>
> Best!
> Martin
>
>
> PS:
>> run here or in Europe, so...not much
>> to worry about.
>
> How premature you can be.
> Meteoritics was always highly international.
> Do you think the major collections of the World and with them meteorite
> science could have started or develop at all, if they would have collected
> only their national finds? Vienna, London, Paris, Moscow, Smithonian...
> I hope your studies contain also some lessons about the history of your
> field. Learn who a Schreibers, a Chladni, a Daubree, a Krinov, a Cohen, a
> Paneth and so many else were.
>
> And today it is a matter of course, that on the most important new finds
> immediately scientists in labs around the world are working together.
> And we all are glad and happy, that still such capacities do exist.
>
>
>
>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Jason
> Utas
> Gesendet: Samstag, 13. M?rz 2010 09:53
> An: Martin Altmann; Meteorite-list
> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] 5 reasons to record meteorite coordinates
>
> Hello Martin, All,
> Sorry - been busy for the past few days.
> So...
>
>
>> First. You rely on that also in future people will go out to hunt for
>> meteorites.
>
> Barring the inconceivable supposition that people might stop hunting
> for some reason...they will.
> And I don't think that anyone on this list is going to agree with you
> that this is a risk.
>
>> That the main load of modern meteorites was found by the private sector
> you
>> seem to accept. That the main load of the meteorites, symbolically called
>> the Semarkona-stuff - stems indirectly or directly from the private sector
>> you may accept too.
>
> Yes and no - the majority of such meteorites are coming from two
> places - Antarctica and NWA. ?To say private versus academic
> is...irrelevant.
>
>> So.
>> What you have to see are the new laws.
>> They change essentially the situation.
>> With them it isn't like it was in 1850, like in 1900, like in 1950 or in
>> 1980 any longer.
>
> I thought we were talking about reasons why keeping track of where a
> meteorite falls is important.
> You seem to want to change this into a "private collectors buy more
> meteorites than academic institutions because they have more money so
> they therefore have a right to do whatever they want" sort of
> argument, which is...again, kind of wrong.
>
>> Because they take every incentive to a private person to hunt for
>> meteorites, they forbid that a finder can keep a piece of his find, they
>> offer no reward or covering of the costs the hunter had and they don't
> allow
>> anymore that a hunter can make any living from his job.
>
> You're not making sense here - if you're talking about the scientists
> being ungrateful, etc, it's simply not true. ?I don't know which nasty
> folks do your work for you, but the folks up at UCLA are pretty damn
> nice, and if we have something they want for research, or they need a
> particular meteorite from a dealer, they always ask prepared to pay
> for it - though such specimens usually wind up being donated to them.
>
>> In this respect I would kindly ask you to leave for a moment your
>> U.S.-desert-centric view. Because that took place the recent years and is
>> taking place today in many other countries.
>
> What? ?Finds being confiscated by academic institutions with no
> restitution for finders? ?Where?
>
>> Therefore it's not that likely that anyone in future would like to hunt
> for
>> meteorites and certainly never more to that extent like it happened now in
>> these happy years, but and certainly also not to that coverage it happened
>> in the whole 20th century before.
>
> Even if it does happen, meteorites still escape. ?Why do you think
> there is Sulagiri on the market, or even new Sikhote-Alin and Gibeon?
> Rocks get through. ?And people will always looks for them.
>
>> Or to say it clear for you - if we had such laws before, we have today in
> so
>> many countries - a Nininger wouldn't have been possible at all and a Rubin
>> wouldn't have a Semarkona poster on the wall and a Bevan most probably
> would
>> be a mineralogist or a geologist, but not a meteoriticist.
>
> Actually, since you're talking about academic folks, you're completely
> wrong. ?There's a reason that none of *us* has any Semarkona, but that
> Alan does have some. ?That's because he's a scientist, and while we
> little folk may never get a piece of it, he will always have access to
> some. ?And falls like Semarkona likely weren't piked up by
> Nininger-like folk. ?If you read through older books, they were
> generally picked up by locals and held until scientists came to
> investigate the fall, or given to a local official, etc. ?While
> Nininger did a spectacular amount of work in the US, you have to
> recognize that the reason we have so many falls from Europe and other
> places isn't because of Nininger-like people.
> It was because of ordinary people.
>
>> To lean back and to expect that there always will be some stupid ones
>> (don?t call them a... - hey for my last posting I received even a "Heil
>> Hitler" greeting from a list member...) bringing you the stones into your
>> lab, that you can do your research on them and your publications necessary
>> for your career - and these risking for doing that fines, high fines,
>> imprisonment or even death,
>> is a comfort attitude.
>
> Depends on where you get the stones...laws are laws, and while I don't
> fully understand what you said above, you've got to understand that
> people get worked up about much less-important things. ?Are you really
> that surprised?
>
>> But in my eyes not acceptable. Neither it is reasonable, that scientists
>> would have to work due lacking alternatives on illegal meteorites.
>> Here we have to change something. Agreed?
>
> They never have to - they could very easily reject them. ?But I
> suppose the problem is that someone is offering them illegal
> meteorites in the first place, because that's the person who's really
> breaking the law.
>
>> Second point, The Rush.
>> ?Jason, I see in many countries meteorite science in a hefty decline.
>> Take only my country. We have almost no places anymore to get a meteorite
>> classified. Btw. iron meteorites can't be classified in Germany anymore.
>> Vacant places in meteoritics in the institutes aren't occupied anymore.
> Some
>> of the in the world most renowned institutes were fully shut down. The
> Holy
>> Temples of German meteoritics, among them the oldest collection of the
> world
>> together with the Fersman, and the specialized institutes have absolutely
> no
>> budgets anymore to acquire meteorites and let it be pieces for a hundred
>> bucks, neither the financial means to display their collection, nor the
>> means to curate their collections lege artis.
>
> Ok.
>
>> The hunting is done solely by the private collectors, as well as the
> public
>> outreach and education is almost solely done by the private sector.
>
> Right. ?We have the money, and thus the power in this scenario. ?In my
> eyes, you seem set on abusing that power.
> We're now all that's standing between the science of our hobby/way of
> life going to the dogs.
> And if there aren't people *here,* outside of institutions, who value
> good documentation and scientific practice, then it really will
> disappear.
>
>> Recently we had even to collect money among the German collectors, money
> to
>> support the so successful European fireball network, which is run by
>> volunteers for more than 30 years, because the German Space Agency isn't
>> willing anymore to pay the 6000$, the whole net costs a year.
>> I was so ashamed to read, that someone from a German university with a
>> billions $ budget, was coming to Blood for begging to donate a 100$-Campo.
>> And the only chance for the leading institutes to still get new material
> to
>> do research on and to diversify and to enlarge the existing collections,
> is,
>> to be on the drip of the private sector handing in type and deposit
>> specimens or donating specimens.
>
> Well, if they're running analyses, that shouldn't be much of a
> problem, but if, as you say, they aren't even providing those services
> anymore, then it looks like your German institutions are out of luck.
>
>> And I'm, not living in a meteoritic Andorra,
>> I'm living in the country of a Chladni, father of meteoritics; of a
> Krantz,
>> one of if not the first meteorite dealer, of a Humboldt, of a Cohen, of a
>> Ramdohr and so on.
>> And Jason, we even haven't any restrictive meteorite laws.
>> Even worse is the situation in Austria!
>> The most important historical collection of the Earth!
>> It is a shame and a scandal. They can't get on with their collection
>> anymore.
>> The nation, where a Schreibers founded modern meteoritics, the country,
>> which had a Tschermak, a Brezina and many more.
>> Poland!
>> Andrzej Pilski just told the situation there.
>> Even worse than in Germany and Austria.
>> And Poland belongs to the countries with the oldest meteorite traditions
> on
>> Earth.
>> France, land of Daubree and Biot and many else,
>> Russia with its glorious epoch of meteoritics Krinov-style and also in
> 19th
>> century,
>> also little Buchwaldt-country...
>> or little Switzerland, there they weren't even able to preserve the
> largest
>> historic meteorite collection of the country few years ago for a few
>> hundredthousands bucks, instead it was liquidated to private buyers,
> because
>> there was no intrest by the uiversities and museums, who had preemption
> for
>> the stuff.
>> Australia - we better don't talk anymore about.
>> No better.
>> Everywhwere the same.
>> Just ask all around in these countries.
>
> Again, not seeing why this means that we shouldn't take down
> coordinates when we find meteorites.
>
>> If I see that there is such a decline in public meteorite science within a
>> so short period of time and exactly in these years, were the number of
>> meteorites exploded and the costs got cheaper than ever in whole history,
>
> And yet here in the US, not much has changed; if anything, we have
> more places doing analytical work on meteorites - and the market
> doesn't mind whether analyses are run here or in Europe, so...not much
> to worry about.
>
>> And if I see, that this decline is additional accelerated by introducing
>> these disastrous laws,
>
> Sounds like the two things are independent of each other, to be
> honest. ?Institutions here in the US are running low on funding as
> well, but they're still getting samples, donations, and the occasional
> meteoric windfall by means of donation or reasonable purchase (I even
> saw some institutions buying at Tucson), so forgive me if I'm not
> fearing for the field just yet. ?And while they may be operating
> mainly off of type samples, as you note, there are too many NWA's to
> even analyze, and countless rare and important meteorites coming from
> everywhere, so...no, I'm not fearing for the science as you are.
>
>> then I simply fear, that we can't afford that hiatus, I spoke about,
>> because then I fear we won't have any meteorite research in all these
>> countries anymore at all.
>
> O...k...
>
>> Currently I see only the USA, Japan, Canada and partially the U.K. and
>> Switzerland investing good means in meteorite research + China with their
>> newer Antarctic program.
>
> Yep.
>
>> Understand, that for collectors like me, meteoritically grown up in the
>> 1980ies and not living in one of these countries it means a great pain in
>> our hearts to see meteoritics disappear in these countries in vacuity.
>
> I fail to see how this justifies not recording where meteorites are found.
>
>> And in especially these times, where the chances and possibilities for
> that
>> branch of science are so splendid like never before in history (and where
>> such research, see the other branches of sciences, astronomy, planetology,
>> space exploration - seem to make meteorite research especially necessary).
>> Almost unbearable it is for us to see, that this development is
> additionally
>> accelerated by introducing all these blind and new protectionist laws.
>
> Ditto my comment above.
>
>> All what would be necessary is, to restore the budgets of the institutes
> to
>> that level they once had.
>> Then we wouldn't have to debate about laws.
>
> Ditto my comment above.
>
>> Well and for your concern. Turn down the laws and pay the hunters.
>> Then you will get all coordinates and documentation for all new finds you
>> need.
>
> Morocco. ?How restrictive are the laws?
> How many stones are coming from Australia and being "found" elsewhere?
> And why/how do you think these stones would help German institutions
> if they were "found" in Australia?
> Your reasoning is...faulty.
>
>> To make fun about people to equip them with technical devices which cost
>> more than they have to live from per month, who would need that money
> rather
>> for sending their children to school, to afford a good nutrition, and the
>> most basic health care...
>> Jason, you are thinking not far enough.
>
> If they're making less than $50/month and dealers are making many tens
> or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year off the rocks they sell
> them, maybe that says something bad about the way we as a culture deal
> with them. ?Because GPS' aren't exorbitantly expensive to people like
> you or me.
>
>>>How much money did you make off of your last lunar? ?Enough to buy one
>>>or two and change your profit by 1%? ?If every dealer and did that,
>>
>> I'm living in a high-tax/dues country. To generate samples of the rarest
>> matter on Earth and some rare types in a denser pace than the official
>> expeditions and the Antarctic teams with all their manpower costs also
>> something.
>
> Either way, a $50 GPS would be nothing. ?If every dealer sent one back
> to Morocco every time they made $1000 profit from their sales, there
> would be hundreds of GPS' there now. ?Maybe thousands.
>
>> I estimate the total annual turnover of sold meteorites in World-ebay
> would
>> feed 7-8 meteorite dealers/hunters in my country with an average salary of
>> an average job.
>
> Of course, most sales aren't run through ebay...especially the high-end
> ones.
>
>> If the institutes and museums would buy meteorites like they had bought
>> still 10 years ago, we would equip dozens of NWA-hunters with GPS-units
> and
>> cameras,
>> and if they would pay additional the prices they paid 10 years ago, we
> would
>> equip a whole army of hunters.
>
> Right, but you're arguing two completely unrelated things here. ?You
> seem to be trying to say that restrictive hunting laws are the reason
> why institutions are losing funding/doing worse in general, and I just
> don't see the connection.
>
>>> but the incentive to find new and rare
>>> material is money, not science
>>
>> Money for being able to work in their profession and to maintain their
>> passion. And for the professional ones to make a living. Absolutely
>> legitimate, I'd say.
>
> No, I'm talking about dealers buying stones for pennies a gram, and
> then a collector saying that they're willing to pay $2,000 for the
> stone when it's discovered to be a rare one. ?You say that it's the
> way things should work because the dealers need to make a living, etc.
> ?I see a system which is flawed because you're essentially exploiting
> the hard menial labor of third-world citizens to make a
> disproportionately large profit. ?Before, dealers were serving a
> purpose, going over there to bring back stones that regular collectors
> couldn't buy. ?Nowadays, the Moroccans themselves have the internet
> and sell directly; there's no more *need* for dealers in that
> capacity.
>
>> Once you have finished your studies and you will have your salaried
> position
>> as a meteorite professor, you wouldn't accept to work for love than for
>> money.
>
> I probably won't go into the field professionally; I'm not on track
> college-wise to do so, though I suppose I might do some sort of
> graduate work that would turn me in that direction.
>
>> (And then perhaps, cause you are on this list, you will be so wise to
>> offer Sonny, and he will get older than a Nininger, a fair contract, that
> he
>> will find da good stuff and the bad stuff for your institute, with all
>> documentation. ;-)
>
> That wouldn't be a bad idea for an institution, if folks like Sonny
> would actually agree to do such a thing. ?I would consider taking a
> similar job, but the problem is that I'm a little attached to my
> finds, and handing them over to anyone (or selling them) isn't really
> that appealing - they would have to allow me to curate the specimens
> as well, at least so long as I lived.
>
>> Well, and I think you're still too young to understand.
>> If money would be their main incentive, they would deal with fossils,
>> certain types of minerals, artefacts, antiquities, arts, precious stones,
>> vintage cars, books (wow, the special edition of the new Apollo-book from
>> Taschen publishing house costs 90,000$), coins, baseball cards, furniture,
>> real estate..and stuff.
>
> A $90k book? ?I saw many meteorites at Tucson worth more than a mere
> $90k. ?Ideally, yes, I suppose real estate would be a more lucrative
> business on the whole, but that takes licensing, training, etc. ?This
> is an easy retail business if you know what you're doing and what
> prices are. ?Probably easier than fossils, etc, because there are
> price gradients that make a little bit more sense - and while a fall
> like Allende might come along and make CV3's worth 1/10 what they
> were, generally, values stay pretty static for given meteorites - much
> more so than for fossils, where a new discovery can make a dealer's
> inventory literally worthless, especially if they focus on a
> particular locality or species.
>
>> Show me one meteorite hunter or dealer who came to wealth in the last 15
>> years in selling meteorites.
>
> Show me a fossil dealer who did the same thing. ?Precious stone
> dealer? ?Vintage car dealer? ?Any sort of dealer? ?I can name the odd
> yard-sale painting discovery that netted a few million dollars,
> but...if I get ahold of the next Fukang, I'll do pretty well, too...
>
>> Haag. Haag is regarded as titan of the titans, right?
>> He's always quoted in interviews and articles, to have sold in his
> lifetime
>> meteorites for 10 million USD.
>> Turnover of 10 millions means certainly not a profit of 10 millions, he
> will
>> have had his costs and expenses and taxes and so on...
>
> Not for the money he made - I can name a few dealers who are doing
> better than he is. ?He's well known for his collection and a few
> famous recoveries.
>
>> No matter, what will be left.
>> Jason don't you think, that a Haag after all what he has done for
>> meteoritics, for bringing up such meteorites, for reanimating and
>> popularizing meteorites, especially in your country hasn't deserved such a
>> sum for his life achievements?
>> 40 years performance, 10 millions turnover. The most known meteorite
> dealer
>> on Earth.
>
> Again, I know a few who have done considerably better, money-wise.
>
>> Go into the Smithonian. The little blue diamond exhibited there from my
> very
>> home country Bavaria, once part of the Bavarian crown jewels (thus
> certainly
>> more a cultural heritage than a desert find created in space and lying
>> thousands of years untouched by humans in the soil), where each piece of
>> lunar is 10,000 times more rare,
>> was sold on an auction last year, with a higher result than all meteorites
>> together Haag sold in his life.
>
> Right...I agree, but...again, not seeing what this has to do with not
> writing down coordinates, but continue...
>
>> Here in Munich at the moment just a collection of pre-Columbian artefacts
>> from a dealer is held back, cause some countries claim a violation of
>> UNESCO-rules (but most probably the artefacts will be given back to the
>> dealers, cause the countries failed to prove so far, that they were
>> illegally exported) - there the most valuable specimen, a stela, is valued
>> with 15 million $. Or take the result of the Yves St.Laurent collection of
>> art and knickknackery auction - almost half a billion. Or more recently
> the
>> sale of the modern art sculpture of the Walking Man with a result of 78
>> millions,
>> Or let it be the Spiderman-booklet for 1 million...
>
> Coordinates..?
>
>> Well. Believe me. The pros in the private sector are in meteorites
> certainly
>> for more motives than the filthy lucre.
>> It's about enthusiasm, adventure, passion.
>
> Some yes, some no.
>
>> Hey Jason, you're studying to be once a meteoriticist?
>
> Nope.
>
>> What about to apply for an internship at a professional meteorite hunter
> or
>> dealer for a semester or a year?
>
> Thinking about buying a saw, but I don't have much motivation to start
> destroying collection pieces in the name of money.
>
>> Would enable you to become acquainted with the more practical side, the
>> other important side of your later profession.
>> Seriously.
>
> Seriously? ?I'm planning on coming home this summer, doing some
> cutting, and selling some stuff.
> Just need to find a good saw, etc.
> Hell, I've done enough cutting for UCLA on their equipment to know how
> to use a buehler isomet as well as anyone. ?Beyond that...not cutting
> any prime collection pieces, sorry. ?It's against my religion :D
>
>> But be prepared it's such a terribly hard job, you probably wouldn't want
> to
>> do for the rest of your life :-)
>
> Hard? ?I love hunting whenever I can. ?Summer, winter, whenever. ?Love it.
> We'll probably be out and about starting next weekend, for a few weeks.
> If I never had to sell my finds, yeah, I'd do it for a living.
> But...that's not how it works.
> As it is, I'll try to get a decent job with good pay so that I can
> take lots of "terribly hard" hunting vacations.
>
> But I don't think you guys have ever sold a *personal* find, so...not
> much difference.
>
> Oh - and I'll record every find with GPS. ?Because I want to. ?Way to
> go completely off topic.
>
> Regards,
> Jason
>
>>
>> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
>> Von: Jason Utas [mailto:meteoritekid at gmail.com]
>> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 10. M?rz 2010 21:09
>> An: Martin Altmann; Eric Wichman; Meteorite-list
>> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] 5 reasons to record meteorite coordinates
>>
>> Hello Eric, Martin, All,
>>
>> I'll address Eric's message first:
>>
>>>Though I appreciate you enthusiasm your logic isn't that, well, realistic
>> for good solid scientific data, especially when it comes to new falls
> which
>> will most likely become the centerpiece of meteoritics in the years to
> come.
>>
>> I'm talking about places like NWA where thousands of meteorites that
>> are, for the most part, already thousands of years old, are currently
>> being swept into piles and sold for pennies per gram.
>>
>>>It's already BIG news every time there's a new fall somewhere in the
> world,
>> and we've learned much more about where meteorites come from and how the
>> interact with the Earth's atmosphere and even more about fall dynamics in
>> the last 3 years than the entire history of meteoritics.
>>
>> Right, which isn't to say that we wouldn't know more if zealous
>> collectors hoping to find more pieces chose to document their finds
>> before moving on to try to find another.
>>
>>>What about news falls? Are we to leave them in the dirt to weather for a
>> "few hundred years"? Wouldn't it be better to "save" them from the plow
> and
>> rain? Or could they just sit there for a few hundred years until
> scientists
>> "decide" to go pick them up?
>>
>> Not at all; just take a look at Holbrooks today. ?Not nearly as
>> attractive as they were a mere century ago. ?Same goes for Malotas,
>> Gao, etc.
>>
>>>Do you still think "not much will happen" to them? They will weather, they
>> will deteriorate, and if the meteorite falls in a humid and rainy area
> they
>> won't last long at all nor be of much value to science after a few hundred
>> years. Even IF you were able to find them after that long of a period in
>> that environment what shape would they be in. Now if they fall in a desert
>> then that's better, but we can't really call up 1-800-Meteors and order a
>> fireball to drop in the desert can we? ;) Now that's a novel idea... I
>> wonder.... Hmmmm
>>
>> Etc, etc. ?Falls are a different story, and you really only get to the
>> point in your PS, so I'll skip to that.
>>
>>>P.S. As a side note:
>> Everyone should record data on ALL meteorite finds, but alas, I've
>> seen people simply pick up stones and walk away without taking photos
>> or recording coordinates of NEW falls. It's a shame, but it happens.
>> At least if you look at the newest falls over the last 3 years or so,
>> you'll see that a good majority of meteorite hunters do in fact record
>> all data possible and only then do they remove the stone.
>>
>> Bingo. ?There's your problem. ?Even when people have the means to
>> document every find (e.g. Ash Creek, Buzzard Coulee, Park Forest,
>> etc.), not all people do! ?It's one thing to say that it's not
>> plausible to document every NWA, but when it comes down to it, there's
>> no excuse for not documenting stones when, if you're willing to make
>> the effort and responsibility to hunt for rocks from space, you're
>> choosing to *not* make the effort to document your find as well as it
>> should be done. ?It's simply irresponsible.
>>
>> So, to reiterate - I'm not advocating leaving fresh falls on the
>> ground, but when it comes down to it, as I said before Jeff even said
>> it - perhaps we should have some sort of a regulatory/qualifying way
>> to judge and permit meteorite hunters before they go out into the
>> field. ?It would make a lot of sense...
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Martin Altmann
>> <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I said as much in my message.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I agree - terrestrial history is undoubtedly less important than
>> extraterrestrial.
>>
>> My problem is that you're willing to take the terrestrial/entry
>> history and erase it, just like that.
>> Most NWA's are very old; they would not suffer if they were left there
>> for even centuries.
>> If we left them until the time when we could go there and properly
>> document them, they would not suffer.
>> You say that it is worth it to pick them up *now* so that we get the
>> extraterrestrial data and lose the terrestrial data.
>> I think that it would be better to wait the extra few decades so that
>> we might get both sets of data.
>> You have yet to explain why you think that it is worth it to pick them
>> up now as opposed to later in exchange for the loss of all
>> terrestrial/entry data.
>>
>>> Not a year of the last both decades, were not new meteorites with
>> absolutely
>>> new stunning information were recovered.
>>
>> And if we were taking things more slowly and recording, those stones
>> would still be recovered later. ?They would.
>> And we would find more stones paired with them, but maybe not right
>> now. ?Maybe in ten years or twenty.
>> But we would find them eventually if we kept looking, and we would
>> probably find more if we decided to hunt the areas thoroughly. ?But we
>> do not know where NWA 5000, 482, 011, etc were found, so we cannot
>> look for more.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Wow. ?Really, Martin? ?I've been doing this for how long and you don't
>> think I can rattle off the percentages of stony to stony-iron to HED
>> finds and falls, etc?
>> Now you're just being a jerk...
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Ah, that's where we differ in opinion.
>> I've been to the labs and seen what they're doing. ?Yes, they get many
>> new meteorites to analyze thanks to the NWA rush, but if you look at
>> most papers...they don't describe new meteorites. ?They describe
>> features or studies performed on previously studied meteorites. ?I
>> spoke with Alan Rubin a while back at UCLA - we were looking at a
>> large poster-sized photograph of a thin section of Semarkona. ?As he
>> said, he could spend many lifetimes analyzing the countless chondrules
>> in the photo, probing each and every relict grain to determine its
>> thermal history...
>>
>> Scientists don't need more, more, more.
>>
>> Yes, it's great that they're getting so much material to work with,
>> but, hell - they can't even get through all of the Antarctic material.
>> ?There's too much there already.
>>
>> You say we need to find more to advance science. ?I agree. ?But I
>> would advocate letting off and letting science catch up to us a little
>> - and in the meanwhile, preserving the terrestrial history of the
>> stones that we can - instead of simply grabbing what you can while
>> you're alive.
>>
>> Because that's a very egocentric perspective.
>>
>>> And if we would leave the recovery to upcoming generations, I simply have
>> no
>>> faith, that this will happen.
>>
>> It's happened before us, and it will happen in the future. ?I see no
>> reason for you to say such a thing.
>> You might as well say that people will stop collecting minerals or
>> fossils, or lose interest in geology altogether.
>> It's a very strange thing to say.
>>
>>> The official expeditions are tending to a zero-point. In the 1980ies -
>>> 1990ies there were still some last ones, but then?
>>
>> It doesn't take an "official expedition" to document finds well. ?It
>> takes someone with a cheap digital camera and a GPS. ?You keep
>> insinuating things that don't make sense.
>>
>>> 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).
>>
>> Well, they have, actually...though the WAMET and EUROMET folks haven't
>> been down there in a while, they did find nearly a thousand meteorites
>> in Australia in the early 1990s.
>> But those meteorites, in some cases, have been there for upwards of
>> 35,000 years. ?And they *do* do a pretty good job of chasing down new
>> falls using their camera network.
>> I just don't understand this rush of yours. ?They're rocks. ?Yes, I
>> understand that falls weather, etc, but the vast majority of
>> meteorites are already weathered. ?Sitting there for another few
>> decades isn't going to to much, if anything, to them. ?Yes, I would
>> prefer to see more meteorites on the market, but if it's the choice
>> between an stone with coordinates or a stone without them...well,
>> that's not much of a choice, is it?
>>
>>> 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?
>>
>> Honestly, I'm amazed more than anything. ?That strewnfield was
>> *discovered* by scientists!
>>
>>
> http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/news/021909_Meteorite_Pieces_Located_in_West_
>> TX
>>
>> Some people sure have bad memories....
>> It's true that most of the stones found were collected by hunters and
>> collectors, but perhaps that's simply because it was a common
>> meteorite, rather uninteresting to science, and it had a high price
>> tag.
>> Compare to 2008 TC3, where scientists went all the way to Sudan to
>> recover specimens.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> But almost all Omani meteorites are recovered with data anyway, so
>> that's kind of pointless. ?They're gathering data, but no more than
>> would already be gathered by collectors over there.
>>
>>> In Europe, in Russia, in Australia the institutes moan about the blatant
>>> lack of funds.
>>
>> O...k...
>>
>>> In all Sahara countries, without now Morocco, and in Oman no
>>> meteorite departments exist at all.
>>
>> Right, but you're just saying unrelated things. ?This has nothing to
>> do with why NWA finds shouldn't be documented.
>>
>>> China with its enormous surface - there are virtually no meteorites
>>> recovered.
>>
>> Due to a lack of education, probably, but yes...
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> And there's no reason to say that it won't. ?Unless, of course, there
>> are few meteorites left to be found.
>> Then they couldn't, even if they had the means.
>> Which is what I keep saying. ?There's no reason not to wait, because
>> once you pick that rock up and bring it to Rissani, you don't know
>> where the hell it was found. ?And it wouldn't suffer for sitting in
>> the desert for another twenty, or even two-hundred years.
>>
>>> Well and you obviously are not aware, how the very most meteorites aside
>>> Antarctica found their way into the labs and the museums.
>>
>> Again, you're being a bit of an a**.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Education at its best.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Even you use the word "hiatus." ?Hiatus means a temporary reprieve.
>> Temporary.
>> And using it, you seem to want to imply that, once recovery has
>> stopped, it will never recommence.
>> The trouble with this break is that it is happening in large part
>> where collecting was already being done by motivated hunters who *did*
>> document finds well. ?Canada and Australia were not the problem. ?Oman
>> is not the problem.
>> NWA is the problem. ?That's where meteorites are losing their
>> identities, and that's where we need restrictions.
>> I say let Canada and Australia 'go free.' ?Allow responsible hunters
>> with GPS' and cameras to hunt. ?But there's no excuse for this highly
>> unscientific recovery of meteorites from NWA so that we can get as
>> many samples into labs as quickly as possible.
>> Well, unless you're a dealer hoping for a new lunar.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> All I could find online was that an Antonio Silva discovered the first
>> stone, and that locals subsequently recovered others. ?Not sure what
>> your point is here.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I can get you a full slice of Eagle's Nest if you want. ?I *do* know
>> who has what...
>>
>>> 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!).
>>
>> And if we hadn't, in almost all cases, those meteorites would still be
>> sitting in NWA, intact, and with their coordinates as well. ?Waiting
>> to be found by someone with a GPS. ?Someone who could come back and
>> reliably hunt for more in a thorough fashion.
>> In a few decades, we could easily have twice as much or ten times as
>> much of this rare material than we do now. ?Maybe we will. ?But if we
>> do, pairings will be unknown, and, assuming that some meteorites are
>> actually heterogeneous, much information will actually be lost.
>>
>>> You can't be serious, if you would deny the importance of these
> recoveries
>>> and the advances for science they meant.
>>
>> I keep acknowledging it, but at least now you're finally saying that
>> it's more important to you to have them *now,* which is a statement I
>> can't agree with.
>>
>>>>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.
>>
>> Some people are stopping going to Oman, some people are choosing not
>> to hunt in the US, and many are choosing not to hunt in Australia.
>> But many are choosing to continue to go to these places to look for
>> meteorites.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Depends on the country - some allow you to own, some not to export,
>> some to export with a permit, some pay you for them, etc. ?So saying
>> that the laws discourage hunting....look at Neuschwanstein, look at
>> Grimsby and Buzzard Coulee. ?Such laws don't seem as discouraging as
>> you suggest. ?And coordinates were not misrepresented in those places;
>> you would have to make them very false in order to change the
>> *country* in which they were found.
>>
>>>>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.
>>
>> Well, assuming that those known fields have been hunted out, you're
>> lamenting the loss of nothing, really.
>> I suppose not being able to hunt legally, which I've already said, in
>> a place like that I don't particularly agree with because of the fact
>> that most meteorites there were being well-documented.
>> Though there are many examples of falsified coordinates, etc., which
>> is something I do disagree with.
>>
>>> 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, there is a team out there now, so that's not true. ?Granted,
>> it's only one team, but one team can recover many stones in a
>> trip...and it's not like they're going anywhere any time soon. ?Oman
>> is another place where most stones are very old, and while science is
>> undoubtedly the better for them, perhaps it would be better if people
>> didn't lie about where they found them. ?Perhaps it would be better if
>> it took longer for a scientific team to recover the material and
>> information weren't falsified.
>>
>>> Well and with help of the private hunters, we have 50kgs more, and 48
>>> additional different lunaites more.
>>
>> It's not as though the material wouldn't still be waiting to be picked
>> up with coordinates if we didn't have it yet.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> More, more, more, fast, fast, fast. ?There is no reason for this. ?I
>> agree - more is better. ?But when you lose documentation, I would
>> favor taking our time and actually recording where they were found
>> instead of using, again, basely unscientific recovery methods. ?Those
>> rocks would still be there, waiting to be picked up - another fact
>> that I keep saying and that you keep ignoring.
>>
>>> 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....
>>
>> Now that's something I think we can all agree is waaaayyyyyy
>> over-optimistic.
>>
>>> For me, these finds are an advance.
>>
>> Don't see what you mean by that.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I admire such lofty goals, but the incentive to find new and rare
>> material is money, not science. ?Hence a lunar sells for more than an
>> LL3.1, and hence, people try to find lunars. ?Unequilibrated material,
>> while it is still valued, is what tells us so much more about the
>> early solar system. ?And it's worth a mere fraction of the other
>> stuff.
>> Go figure.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Accept it? ?Well, no, I don't have a problem with that. ?I understand
>> what it's done for the science of meteoritics, etc. ?What I dislike is
>> the commercialization of the hobby to the extent that science actually
>> winds up the worse for it, which is what you don't seem to have a
>> problem with.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Right, and they typically did a good job of recording their finds - so
>> great. ?My problem is with NWA, and with irresponsible people who go
>> to Ash Creek and Buzzard Coulee and don't GPS and photograph stones in
>> situ.
>>
>>> (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)
>>
>> Well, take inflation into account. ?$1000/g nowadays is actually
>> cheaper than $100/g in the 19th century.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I don't know number of each - all I know is that there are many
>> hunters at places like Franconia and Gold Basin who go to look for
>> meteorites and who don't care to take a GPS or camera, and they're
>> starting to go cold-hunting. ?Many of them have little incentive to
>> record coordinates.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Well, we do. ?All it would take is a GPS, pen and paper. ?Not much
>> infrastructure.
>>
>>> In Algeria anyway it wouldn't be possible, cause due to the new
>>> laws no meteorite trade isn't allowed anymore.
>>
>> >From what I understand that doesn't stop the nomads from crossing
>> over, so I don't see where there's a problem.
>>
>>> And else, the meteorite prices of the NWAs are still to low, that such a
>>> task could be financed.
>>
>> It could easily be financed. ?GPS' cost as little as $50 nowadays.
>> How much money did you make off of your last lunar? ?Enough to buy one
>> or two and change your profit by 1%? ?If every dealer and did that,
>> they would all have GPS' by now.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> It wouldn't make a dent.
>>
>>> Or establish a cooperation with an Algerian university and hunt there to
>>> make it better.
>>
>> That might make a difference, but I'm busy enough here trying to
>> double-major, in clubs, working in a physics research lab here,
>> so...yeah. ?Maybe if I go into meteoritics in graduate school it would
>> make sense, but there's too little in the way of meteorites here at
>> Berkeley to warrant suggesting such a project because there are no
>> professors who are that into meteorites to back it.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Oh, it's not a money issue. ?It's a politics issue and a priorities
>> issue. ?I think that would be really fun, but I'm already committed to
>> a project here working on meteorites. ?The fact that you're making the
>> kind of argument that says "if you care so much, then why isn't your
>> life devoted to the cause" means that you've really nothing to say
>> against the idea, though, because you've stopped questioning it. ?So I
>> guess it really does have some merit.
>>
>>> >From nothing nothing comes.
>>> No sweet without sweat.
>>> These truisms any hunter or dealer has internalized.
>>
>> Hah, and don't I know it. ?Not all hunters are willing to go out in
>> the summer. ?We do.
>>
>>> Well in the end again.
>>>
>>> We have different opinions (and that's o.k.).
>>
>> Clearly.
>>
>>> For me it's more important, that a scientists has at all a sample to put
>> in
>>> his microprobe.
>>
>> They would always have had enough for that. ?I'm against this surplus
>> where there are too many to be classified and they can only analyze
>> the rare ones because there are so many OC's that they can't deal with
>> them all. ?That's a problem. ?And the lack of coordinates is a
>> problem. ?And in the long run, we will have less material to show for
>> it because we have not hunted thoroughly and mapped out strewnfields,
>> etc. ?And this is where we disagree- ?I say move slower and more
>> thoroughly. You say move fast, take what you can, and move on.
>> Science doesn't work like that.
>>
>>> For you it's more important to preserve field information than to recover
>>> meteorites.
>>
>> Yeah.
>>
>>> 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....
>>
>> No. ?I'm more interested in the solar view of things as well.
>> But I acknowledge and value the terrestrial aspect of their history as
> well.
>> Saying that I believe it should be preserved doesn't mean that I think
>> it's more important. ?I just think that it's important enough to
>> warrant saving.
>>
>> Any real scientist would.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>>
>>> 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 Thu 18 Mar 2010 10:11:47 PM PDT