[meteorite-list] NYT story

From: Carl Agee <agee_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 09:28:10 -0600
Message-ID: <BANLkTi=2i-KL58mcB5thzQiC1DSenEZ6yg_at_mail.gmail.com>

Since I am quoted in this article, here?s my reaction to it. The
reporter seems very confused, in that he lumps together a story about
the Gebel Kamil crater in Egypt and the legal meteorite trade (NWA)
based primarily in Morocco. During the interview with him I spent a
fair amount of time trying to explain to him how beneficial the NWA?s
have been for planetary science research. For example, I mentioned how
the number of rare Angrite meteorites has more than doubled due to
African finds ? a huge enhancement to our understanding of the early
solar system, and of course I mentioned all the lunars and martians,
and other rare classes. I told him that I was not terribly well
informed about the Gebel Kamil crater situation, but in my opinion the
highest priority would be to protect the impact structure from
degradation as these are quite rare on Earth. I also told him, that
the Gebel Kamil meteorites on the other hand, are probably not hard
to come by, and I?m sure if I wanted to study one for research, I
could get a sample at a reasonable price or even get one as a
donation from a collector, which museums benefit from frequently. I
did get the feeling that he was hoping to hear something negative from
me. As such he ended the interview rather quickly, but said something
like ?oh, the NWA meteorites sounds like an interesting story, I need
to come back to that at a later time?. So of course I was
disappointed to see what mess the final NYT version was.

--
Carl B. Agee
Director and Curator, Institute of Meteoritics
Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences
MSC03 2050
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque NM 87131-1126
Tel: (505) 750-7172
Fax: (505) 277-3577
Email: agee at unm.edu
http://epswww.unm.edu/iom/pers/agee.html

Received on Tue 05 Apr 2011 11:28:10 AM PDT