[meteorite-list] Pros at Work II

From: al mitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:15:40 -0500
Message-ID: <517738A82F12464F90210B860242CAA9_at_StarmanPC>

Hi Martin and all,

They can record the falls but no one is allowed to collect material unless
it falls on private ground ;-) Then no export. Wonder how large the
stations are in Australia?? Are they owned or do they rent the gound for the
ranches from the government?

--AL Mitterling


----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Altmann" <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Pros at Work II


> Hi MikeG,
>
> Yah certainly,
> I was not so sure about the objectives of that project. I mean, could have
> been also to photograph meteors, hence observation only,
> but I checked the goals the Aussie network gave in the description of the
> project, where they successfully applied for 300,000GBP from the STFC for
> the maintainance of the stations and the recovery for the next 3 years
> (roughly 10,000$/month).
> (No worries, they have other grants too. I'm too lazy to check the other
> grants, someone from European net said, they got 1.5 million Euro from EU
> too - peanuts anyway.).
> And there is told, that indeed they want to recover meteorites by means of
> the stations.
>
> Quote:
> "This technique has been employed a number of times over the last 50
> years,
> all in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, but although hundreds
> meteorite falls have been observed, only four were recovered. The poor
> success rate is down to the difficulty in recovering a small rock in an
> area
> of several square kilometres when there is significant undergrowth. Our
> solution was rather simple. Over the last few decades, tens of thousands
> of
> meteorites have been found in the world's deserts. Put a fireball network
> in
> a desert and it should be much easier samples. We have designed a fireball
> observatory that can operate automatically in the harsh environment of the
> Australian desert. Based on previous fieldwork in this area, looking for
> old
> weathered meteorites, we should have about a 70% chance of finding
> meteorites that we see land."
>
> So I was only thinking, what could help, to meet their goals and their
> predictions better. (Now they're still at 14% recovery rate and not at
> 70%,
> as they supposed they will achieve.)
> Especially, when they say on their homepage, that they can't go searching
> more often, because it's so expensive.
>
> Hence only for that project. To find fresh falls - as you know, Australia
> implemented the 1970ies UNESCO convention - commendation of the working
> group on meteorites of UNESCO was for fresh falls: Go and get it ASAP! -
> it's no good to let a fall first one or two years in desert before you
> search it.
> And to connect the finds with orbits calculated from the fireball tracks.
>
>
> Of course you're right else, Mike:
>
>>"Over the last few decades, tens of thousands of meteorites have been
>>found
> in the world's deserts."
>
> Yes in the world's deserts - though they could have added also: "but only
> in the Australian deserts not."
>
> Naturally, if you forbid the hunt or if you take any incentive for the
> people to search, you won't have meteorites.
> If it would be about meteorites only, the Aussies would simply have to
> liberate the hunting/ownership/export practice, maybe could introduce a
> split solution,
> and of course then the new finds would flow in to Perth and to the other
> institutes, for free
> (and of course at much lower costs, even when they would be partially
> purchased.)
>
> That really everyone knows. I guess Bevan & Crew as well as you and me and
> any meteoricist too.
>
> But here I was thinking, that if you build up such a great project, you
> shouldn't stop just exactly before the last step!
> And we don't want, that in the end, the Australian network will have the
> same fate like the Prairie network.
>
> I think, they have to search more often or with more personnel - and if
> that
> is too expensive, they should find a solution, that others, who naturally
> are used to hunt more intensively and under more spartan conditions and
> who
> are simply the better hunters, could help them. In the deserts of Sahara,
> Oman, USA it works.
>
> Buuuut as told,
> Definitely not our cup of tea,
> we're no Aussies, nor are we scientists.
>
> Best!
> Martin
>
>
>
>
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Received on Fri 12 Nov 2010 01:15:40 PM PST