[meteorite-list] Fwd: Primitive Achondrite Question

From: Richard Montgomery <rickmont_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 17:09:50 -0800
Message-ID: <44E85943E33745DB883EED90494F50E3_at_bosoheadPC>

I knew my UCD background BS in systematic Entomolology would eventually come
in handy within this List! It is always the newly discovered species, and
in our meteorological sense, the yet-to-be-discovered anomalous weirdo
species or meteorite that shatters previous convention.

Having just re-read Dodd's text 1981 twice within the last year I am struck
by how at that time lunar and Martian meteorites were 'ruled out' by the
principal that 'none-exist'....and we know now why that was 'so' 1981 and
today isn't.

My sincere salute to you classifying meteoriticists for your stellar work
and grounded principles (puns intended) for using all current and pending
specimens now available for the work you do! (And for putting one's butt on
the line many more times than twice.)

Sincerely,
Richard Montgomery


----- Original Message -----
From: "MexicoDoug" <mexicodoug at aim.com>
To: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 12:51 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Fwd: Primitive Achondrite Question


> Thank you Dr. Rubin, and Bernd for your observations as well! Some of us
> are now wondering what those looking back 50 years from now will think of
> the current system which one could gather is assumed to be an extendable
> foundation to accomodate future developments.
>
> I have also been thinking all along how the modern zoological nomenclature
> has the same wars all the time over which classification blocks fit under
> which subfamilies, tribes, or other higher level constructs. If Alan is
> right, theoretically the pieces in a good classifications can just be
> rearranged as new generic relationships are determined.
>
> I enjoy the 'heated discussions' after seeing first hand how two
> Lepidopterists can stop being on speaking terms just because of
> disagreement on which small butterfly is slightly MORE related to another.
>
> Here's an excerp from Nabokov's Blues. Vladimir Nabokov was probably the
> most insightful classifier in recent Lepidopteran memory (he wasn't afraid
> to risk his reputation by going out on a limb and causing a ruckus among
> his opeers, and as it turned out he was right nearly about everything):
>
> "Yet, dissecting and drawing only 120 specimens (compared with the 2,000
> in his big Lycaeides study), Nabokov proposed what he called "a rather
> drastic rearrangement" of the Latin American Polyommatini, naming in the
> process seven new genuses of Blues -- a reordering so thorough as to link
> Nabokov's name with the group forever if his study, preliminary and
> incomplete as it was, should stand up to re-examination by subsequent
> lepidopterists. On the other hand, if it failed, it would simply wind up
> as an idiosyncratic footnote of the Nabokov legend, a warning to others
> not to overreach, and Nabokov's detractors could say I told you so. In an
> interview for The New York Times in 1997, Charles Remington recalled that
> "eyebrows were raised when Nabokov published his research. A lot of people
> have been uneasy about how well his work would stand up under the scrutiny
> of good professionals."
>
> Charles Remington was the founder of the Lepidopterists' Society, his
> counterpart would be Frederick Leonard of the Meteoritical Society,
> founded 14 years earlier.
>
> Kindest wishes
> Doug
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bernd V. Pauli
> To: meteorite-list
> Sent: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 2:17 pm
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Primitive Achondrite Question
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> Alan kindly wrote:
>
> "George Merrill's "The Story of Meteorites" from 1929:
>
> There are andrites, eukrites, shergottites, howardites, bustites,
> chassignites, chladnites, amphoterites, howarditic chondrites, white
> chondrites, intermediate chondrites, gray chondrites, black chondrites,
> spherulitic chondrites, crystalline chondrites, carbonaceous chondrites,
> orvinites, tadjerites, ureilites, lodranies, grahamite mesosiderites,
> siderophyrs, and more."
>
> or Tschermak for that matter:
>
> The meteorite types known to date are:
>
> I. Main constituents are pyroxenes and plagioclase.
> The crust is glossy.
>
> - Eucrites (Rose). Augite and anorthite (or maskelynite).
> - Howardites (Rose). Augite, bronzite, anorthite.
>
> II. Pyroxenes and olivine form the main constituents.
> The crust is slightly glossy to dull.
>
> - Bustites* (Tschermak). Diopside and enstatite. (*bustites = now
> aubrites)
> - Chladnites+ (Rose). Enstatite with a little anorthite.
>
> +Only Bishopville at Tschermak's time but Bishopville is an aubrite (!)
>
> - Diogenites (Tschermak). Bronzite.
> - Amphoterites (Tschermak). Bronzite and olivine. (now LL chondrites)
> - Chassignites (Rose). Olivine. (now SNC)
>
> III. Bronzite, olivine, iron as main constituents.
>
> Chondrites (Rose). Texture chondritic.
>
> IV. Iron, forming networks, enclosing silicates: plagioclase, olivine,
> pyroxenes, troilite.
>
> - Grahamites (Tschermak). Plagioclase, bronzite, and augite, in iron.
> (Vaca Muerta was a grahamite for Tschermak)
> - Siderophyres (Tschermak). Bronzite in iron. (Steinbach)
> - Mesosiderites (Rose). Bronzite and olivine in iron.
> (Lodran (!) and Hainholz were mesosiderites for Tschermak)
> - Pallasites (Rose) Olivine in iron.
>
> V. Iron with subordinate troilite, schreibersite, etc.
>
> - Iron meteorites
>
> Tschermak omitted the name "shalkite" proposed by Rose because
> reports on the composition of Shalka were contradictory at that time.
>
> Reference:
>
> TSCHERMAK G. (1885) Die mikroskopische Beschaffenheit
> der Meteoriten (Stuttgart E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagshandlung,
> E. Koch, 23 pp.).
>
> English Translation: The Microscopic Properties of Meteorites, Vol. 4,
> No. 6 (Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics, Washington, D.C., 1964).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bernd
>
>
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Received on Tue 06 Dec 2011 08:09:50 PM PST