[meteorite-list] Meteorwrongs and Meteorites

From: Jim Wooddell <jimwooddell_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:16:39 -0700
Message-ID: <BANLkTimjzO3YEsXjG8NPCGP94Yi=Ow16jg_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Adam and Carl!

Are you a private institution or publicly funded?

Jim



On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Adam Hupe <raremeteorites at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I could not agree more. People often forget that there is considerable costs
> involved in characterizing real meteorites and for some reason they expect this
> service for free. ?Meteorite-wrongs tie up a lot of resources and are a drag on
> the few laboratories that are qualified to study real meteorites. I do not think
> there is a laboratory left in Arizona that will still take "meteorites" from the
> general public for study. ?This is due to the increase in meteorite-wrongs that
> waste every bodies time. If this increase in meteorite-wrongs continues, expect
> a lot more laboratories to be off-limits.
>
> Researchers valuable time is better spent on real meteorites rather then telling
> somebody they are not the latest millionaire.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Carl Agee <agee at unm.edu>
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Sent: Thu, April 21, 2011 9:41:59 AM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorwrongs and Meteorites
>
> My take on this is the following. Most people who come to us with a
> suspect meteorite are for some reason expecting that identification
> costs us nothing, and that we can glance at sample and give quick
> answer. So when they go to an average geology department and get a
> "free" meteorite screening they may often get what they pay for --
> someone's best guess -- often of dubious merit. Of course there are
> many samples that are so obviously meteorwrongs that a quick glance is
> all that is needed. But - I would never tell someone they have an iron
> meteorite before I had at least run an EDS analysis on it for Fe and
> Ni. And that's just the start -- if you want to know what kind of an
> iron -- well that's a lot more work still! ?But of course not everyone
> has an SEM in their basement. And guess what? These instruments cost
> money, and the technicians who keep them running are paid salaries. As
> for stones, yes, I can tell you fairly quickly, running a calibrated
> electron microprobe, if your sample is a eucrite, ureilite, lunar,
> martian -- or a just terrestrial basalt. So this is the dilemma that
> we often face: definitive answers usually take time, money, and
> expertise -- there is no free lunch for good data.
>
> --
> 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
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Received on Thu 21 Apr 2011 05:16:39 PM PDT