[meteorite-list] Gebel Kamil

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:48:28 +0100
Message-ID: <01ba01cbe1c8$638572f0$2a9058d0$_at_de>

Hi Richard,

>should I/we all be concerned about now owning (or eventually passing along)
meteorites with
>questionable legal provenence?

Wow, that will be so long now, that I will have a vacation from writing
about that topic for at least 3 months, I wrote even more than Jason!! :-)

(The MetSoc working group: "Save our meteorites" pays me 10 cents per word).


Richard, this question you have to decide by your own and for your own.
Nobody can help you with that.

In principle it is a question, what is more important for yourself.
To comply with laws or to comply with ethical principles.

Law and ethics can be under certain circumstances true opposites.


We in my country for e.g. with that horrible history educate our children in
school,
that in case ethical principles have to override formal laws, if those
violate universal principles of ethics and morals. We also have a
historically strongly contaminated notion and use of the word "hero".
And those, which we read in the textbooks to be true heroes, are in most
cases individuals, who sat in barbarian times their ethical principles above
formal existing laws, which they had agnized to be diametrally adverse to
fundamental ethical principles.

O.k. that is in a way very exaggerated, I have to come down - we are talking
about boring little brown and black stones, where even in the countries with
existing meteorite laws, really all in all nobody is interested in.

Normally in an efficient state of laws, one can be sure, that a regulation
with time will be proven, whether it is ethically fungible. Because there
you have two securities - one is a constitution, granting fundamental rights
and always putting out of force lower ranking regulations, violating these
rights
and you have a second safety - an independent justice, deciding on a
by-case-basis if necessary.

With meteorite laws, we have the problem, that meteorites are such a rare
entity, that these introduced laws in these countries never were approved to
be conform with constitution and secondly that due to the lack of very cases
- because in general, if a meteorite is found, all are happy and come to a
solution without going to court - that they were never challenged.

So that in many countries it's still a question, whether these laws are
"legal" at all.

You can imagine, that in a developed state of laws, the state needs to have
extremely grave reasons for deprive an individual the ownership of an
object. Usually it is, that the common wealth or the common interest on that
object is so high, that private rights have to step back.
Let's take a meteorite in Australia - there it is meanwhile very doubtful
whether that meteorite has such an importance, that the interest of the
state would override private ownership.
Because one sees, that in the last almost 20 years no serious attempts were
made by the experts to retrieve new meteorites by their own - that the
institutional collections do not grow anymore - that you have less than one
new published meteorite per year - while you had in former times dozens per
year - that compared to other countries with deserts Australia has fully
disconnect itself from the global trend of meteorite recovery - and finally
that on some hundreds of finds, made two decades before, no research is
done, as they are still not classified.
So all in all it would be very difficult to deliver grounds, that a new
meteorite found would be of so extraordinary scientific or common interest,
that the holder could be deprived by the state of gaining ownership on the
stone.
And that that regulation from the 1970iesin one of the federal states, that
he is committed to announce the meteorite to the museum and to deliver it
there, with the title to get the bus ticket refunded by the state, could be
not valuable in the very case.

I forgot, what Jason also said, that the Australian state neither shows the
will to get ownership on a very meteorite. That was btw. also one of the
reasons given for the judgment about the Austrian fall Neuschwanstein, that
the accuser (in this case the commune on which land the stone was found)
never showed any will to gain ownership - in English: That they never
searched for it, nor had an idea, that there such a stone was laying around.


And Richard,
and here I have a different opinion, than those thinking, that meteorite
laws would be naturally grown laws,
you have also to look, how these meteorite laws came into place and how they
were created.

And there it's very striking, that that started in the 1970ies, also in
countries where still today nobody would suppose, (and least the scientists
themselves there), that there would be regulations.

It happened in the course of the Unesco 1970 convention and more precisely
due to the working group on meteorites in the run-up to that convention in
the 1960ies.

And these working group consisted of only a few single persons. 5-10 experts
for da whole wide world.
Mainly they were curators of national meteorite collections - that, what
today is a Smith, a Bevan, a Brandstaetter.

So these laws weren't generated from a natural necessity, an exigency or
existing grievances,
but the curators were just thinking, what shall we do, that it's definitely
granted, that samples from the meteorites found in our countries will end in
our national collections.
Not more, not less.
    
Btw. if you read these reports of that working groups, there it was not an
issue at all, that this has to happen cost-free. That what you have now in
certain countries like in parts of Australia - that a state has to get his
meteorites for free - is a very exotic notion. I mean, where else do you
have such an claim - on all other research fields and institutional
collecting, it is a matter of course, that either the state pays directly
for the research objects in purchasing them or in financing research
projects generating these objects, like expeditions, excavations or as you
see with the meteorites the Antarctic campaigns e.g.

In fact, that the stuff should be fall for free into the ownership of a
country, you have only later e.g. in communist China, where amusement was
arising, that in capitalist countries meteorites have to be paid by the
state. But this is a model of society differing from that of many other
countries.

So. Richard and at that times, in the 1960ies, such an approach like the
Unesco working group tried,
was thoroughly a legitimate idea.
Because those were different times.
Then you had no Antarctic campaigns yet, you had from the 150 years before
less than 3000 meteorites in total,
and the national collections still spent remarkable sums for acquiring their
meteorites.

But today, we have a complete different situation, we have all the
meteorites from Antarctica,
Depending on how you count them, 37,000 or 7,000 and you have the hot desert
find explosion almost everywhere, with two, three, five times more
meteoritic material than found in Antarctica (I say that, cause the bulk
load, the OCs are not in the Bulletins, because there are no facilities to
get them classifies),
as well as growing find rates and weights in non-desert countries, where it
is allowed to privately handle meteorites.
And, especially those meteorites especially interesting for the curator and
the researcher don't cost anything anymore.

Richard, me and Stefan just had a little garage sale, ad ad ad ad, few
samples left, which we had found underneath the rug,
where we listed smaller samples, mostly below 50$ - 12 different HEDs were
among them.

Look, still at my times, when I started, check the Bulletins, in the 1980ies
and also in the 1990ies,
there all eucrites were white with black freckles. Now in the garage sale
they were blue, pink..
and the diogenites in my beginning times were all green. Now we had even
black and curry coloured ones, in just that small sale.
As a collector - in the 1980ies and 1990ies, you had your Millbillillie and
your Camel Donga and with them the chapter of eucrites was completely dealt,
done and closed! And else you waited years for an extra, like a fingernail
of Stannern or a Zagami (which was then still an eucrite).
Look in the database - until the 1990ies we hadn't a full page of eucrites,
and in that short period following, we got 5 pages full of eucrites more!

Diogenites, there were ELEVEN. For a collector that meant: Tatahouine and
Johnstown - but then?
Now we coming soon to a hundred within only 10 years.

(And Howardites, such large brackets do not exist, that I could include them
now there. If you at those times had a little slice of a Kapoeta on a show,
adult men you saw sticking with their noses on the glass - an effect, which
you could generate today perhaps still only, if you would have an original
ALH 84001 on the table).

Huh, IMBs we had in the cleaning sale too, totally molten ones, three or
four.
Hmm what did we have in the 1980/90ies - Chico and later Cat Mountain.
But if Cat Mountain ever had cost the equivalent of todays 2 or 5$ then, is
another question.

You see, with these 120 pieces we had in that little sale, of 24 different
very special meteorites, with such an assortment we would have been absolute
super-stars in the 80ies -but more important, here in that little sale,
anyone could purchase a collection for 500 or 600$ of meteorites of such a
special kind, that he would have needed in the 1980ies or 1970ies twenty or
thirty years, until he would have assembled such a variety of so exotic
samples (and anyway he wouldn't be able to afford that).

Well, and therefore I think, that Steve Schoner's view, that meteorites
would be today so much more difficult to obtain for researchers can't be
correct.

Hence.
These old laws don't justice the complete different situation in World
meteorics we have since 1-2 decades anymore. They were made for completely
different circumstances and from a different initial position.

And our problem is today, that they lead for the countries to the opposite
effect, they were originally intended for.
You see it Richard - the new meteorite bonanza, the positive development of
meteorites research and institutional collection takes place in such
countries, where we don't have such an outdated legislation
(or where such a legislation is ignored), while such countries, who adopt
such laws, fall back - often if there was meteorite collecting and research
already established - even far behind the status quo, when the law comes
into force.

To say it a little bit exaggerated. Take an enthusiastic young student of
geology and mineralogy in Australia.
By chance (if something like that still exist at all) he listens to some
lectures about meteorites and becomes interested in. - Like every beginning
collector is doing too, he will play around a little bit with the
Meteoritical Bulletin database...
And the next week he will ask his professor: Sir! What is this for a
geological process, which currently takes place, which makes the Australian
meteorites disappear?
I saw in the Bulletins, that in former times we had many many meteorites
more per year, also the rare types,
and I saw, that in all the other countries with deserts the recent 10 years
the find rates are steeply growing and growing. But we, we have suddenly
almost none anymore. So there must be a geological mechanism going on, which
eat all our meteorites up.

Well and then it depends, which type of lecturer he has.
If it's an old-school professor he will tell:

"Son, it's because Bob Haag comes every year and steals all our meteorites."

Or he has a professor, which has a more actual state of knowledge, than that
of the 1980ies,
and he will explain to the student:
Well, that finds explosion around the World is caused by amateurs and
professionals with a commercial background. And also before most meteorites
on Earth were found by such people.
We in Australia didn't want that. We thought, we could find our meteorites
by our own, but underestimated how difficult and how expensive it is, to
find meteorites. We have not the manpower nor the funds to find meteorites
anymore and on the other hand, we introduced laws, which abolished the basic
conditions that those professionals and amateurs can find meteorites in our
countries at all. And normal people, if they are finding a meteorite, don't
bring it to us anymore, because they receive nothing in exchange from us,
they have no incentive to do so.

Well, Richard, and the most grave problem is,
no matter which type of professor our enthusiastic student has,
he will think with both answers - hummm meteorites must be quite a piffling
trifles, if so few is done for them
and in no way I can specialize in them, because then I won't find a job
later.


A law needs a legitimation.
IMHO the personal will of one, two, three individuals alone - like we have
it often with such meteorite laws,
is not legitimation enough for me, you or the people of a whole nation, the
law is in force.


And laws are not creating themselves, popping out ex nihilo.
A law has either to serve a purpose or has to remedy a mischief.

And there we all have to look, whether the laws work for the purpose they
once were made for.

The intention of these laws, I hope we can agree all about, were that the
meteorites of the individual country are accessible and available for the
national collections and the national research, especially new finds (cause
the old ones they already have) and that the number of finds in general
should grow, that all in all more new meteorites will be available for
research.

Right?

Well. Now. And one has simply to check, what these laws have brought for
results, serving the purposes they were made for.
South Africa - there we had every 5 years or so a new find.
After the laws, we have since 44 years only 1 new meteorite.

China, we had it recently here on the list, since the 1970ies we had several
recovered observed falls per year,
After the law was introduced, since Chandong 1998 we have no observed fall
in the Bulletin anymore and know only of Zunhua since.

O.k. Namibia, no meteorite anymore since the laws - in such countries you
may say is missing the statistical relevance - but at least one can say, the
meteorite laws yielded no improvement.

But glaringly obvious it becomes, if you look at countries known for their
high finds productivity.
Australia I really don't have to mention anymore, 650 meteorites, but only
10 meteorites in the last decade.
Even without the university expeditions, we observed so much larger annual
find rates per year than today,
technically we are right back to the 1850ies now, regarding new meteorite
finds.

Take Libya - no idea, whether they have a law, but only to demonstrate, what
happens, if the people, who usually find the meteorites and who are the
target of meteorite legislation stay away.
In 2000 years you had 2 meteorites there, then in 5 years more than 1000,
well and when they stayed away then, since then 4 or so per year.

So. What we observe is, that at best such a meteorite law has zero improving
effects - whether it prevents a positive development, we can only speculate
(but if you look at the increased annual find rates in many of the liberal
countries, one could think that),
hence so that you come to the minimal conclusion, that the law there is
absolutely needless.

and - and that should be very alarming - that often such laws have as a
result a remarkable worsening of the situation, sometimes a dramatic!
One clearly sees, that only a small fraction of that, what was coming in
before, is ending now in the research labs and in the national collections
since the laws are in place.

So that everyone - with a sober and valuable analyses - comes to the result,

that these laws cause the opposite effect of that, they originally were made
for.
Therefore it would be an imperative to away with them.

Especially difficult, but also especially urgent, is the situation in the
hot desert countries.
In the most meteorite productive regions of the planet.

Normally one would have to concede a lot of patience to them.
Because wherefrom should they have any experience with meteorites?
In all these countries no meteorite science was ever carried out
and all in all just still 10-15 years before, nobody knew there, that there
so many meteorites can be found.

But now we see, that everywhere there over-hastily laws are introduced,
without having any experiences, what is necessary to grant, that all these
meteorites will be found at all.
They introduce there just these kind of meteorite laws, which were designed
in the 1960ies for the situation of the 1960ies for countries, where all in
all anyway almost no meteorites were found, and not for the desert countries
and at times, where such an infrastructure producing all these desert finds
today, hadn't exist yet.

You see it. Before we had nothing in Algeria, now we have two times nothing
Algeria.
Libya I mentioned..
The problem is, with these laws, they take themselves all possibilities,
that any meteorite science can be started there, that any institutional
collections can be built up there.
Imagine, if Morocco would introduce such a law, the same what in Libya
happened will immediately happen.
I think, those countries would need much more some help from the scientists
of the old meteorite countries, that the latter would share their
experiences with them.

You see it often, that there is a completely wrong notion, what meteorites
are at all.
Just take the examples I gave in my last post, with the strange suggestions
made for the Omani meteorites.
You see meteorites always imaginarily lumped together with mineral
resources, artifacts, fossils, seashells.

It seems, to me at least, that the people there in charge believe,
meteorites could be harvested or occur in the same way, like a mineral
deposit, a mine, an archeological excavation site or a dino dies rarely
alone, a layer full of fossils.
It really seems so, that they believe, similar to the above mentioned, that
there would large rubble-piles and screes of meteorites situated in the
deserts, where the dealers and thieves just shortly are making a trip there,
like the mice into the larder to steal the cheese.

They seem not aware, what an effort it means, to find the brown lump (which
brings on the white market - black market does not exist - 30 or 100$) -
they have no ideas how many thousands and even tenth thousands of manhours
are necessary to find a Martian or a Lunar.

Fully understandable. It's the same effect like e.g. that uncometeorites guy
felt for - on internet today it is no difference, whether you buy a small
trilobite, an amethyst or a rock crystal or a kilo-piece from the asteroid
belt or a slice from planetoid Vesta - it costs the same.
Therefore there must be muuuuuuuch of that stuff. And they see, that there
even rocks from Moon or Planet Mars are offered and not at millions of
dollars,
and consequently on the Sunday-family-trip they recover at their places of
excursions three lunars, four martians, and 8 ordinary chondrites. (Each
sunny weekend).

You saw it in Oman. That geological cooperation between Oman and the Suisse
universities existed already 20 years before a meteorite was found in Oman.
There was zero knowledge, neither any interest in meteorites.
Then the professional and commercial hunters went to Oman, trained
scientists among them, and started to recover meteorites until the - excuse
me, my dictionary makes so strange suggestions - the pips squeak (??).
They did excellent scientific field work, made the finds accessible to
everyone - check the publications e.g. about the lunars 10-20 more
scientists did research on the private found ones, than on the
Suisse-Omani-team found. O.k. the Suisse-Oman-team came, saw what the others
had done, said - they even didn't say: Thank You for the immense and great
work, you have done - opening a whole new research area for us, we else
never would have known of - but they said: Stay out! It's now ours. You, you
are criminals.
Well, we all are no educational counselors, and that wouldn't be the point.
The point is, that the laws were tightened, that although it's known now for
more than 10 years, that Oman is such a meteorite land - no institutional
collection was set up in Oman, no lab was created in Oman, no single job for
meteorites was created at an Oman university - nothing they made - and that
they perceived the private sector as a competitor for the Suisse-team. Which
is not the case, the Suisse team goes there once per year, a few people, a
few weeks - one expedition of many, they simply can't compete with the finds
and find rates of the privateers there.
Though you see what happened.
One almost thinks, that in Oman it is not about meteorites, science and
laws, but about satisfying cantankerousness.
I mean, I really don't know whether it is true, that penny dreadful, and I
almost can't imagine, that, what was reported here on the list, that in Oman
a head money was offered for luring a foreigner and meteorite hunter into
the country - that would endanger so much the positive image Oman is trying
to spread abroad.
A quarter of a million... if it would have been about meteorites - 6 tons
all in all are recorded - I mean for that money they could have bought a
third of all meteorites so far found in their country.

Back.
There is the dilemma - how can one keep those countries open without them
destroying for themselves all possibilities of meteorite findings by
introducing laws - until they have collected the necessary experience and
have a better understanding about meteorites, that they can decide, what to
do with them or whether and how they are protected best?


So you see Richard, for your decision, many thoughts could play a role.


Perhaps a third-last thought, because we often discuss here, whether
meteorites could be protected as cultural objects & laws.
Leaving a little bit the backyard. Poland. Poland is one of the countries
with the oldest and longest meteorite traditions on the planet. As a reflex
you can see that, that the Polish collectors scene is very active and vivid,
and compared to other countries, let's say like England, Spain, Italy or
Scandinavia over-represented on the list here and by their activities. For
many decades all meteorite activities in Poland are shouldered not by the
universities anymore, but solely by the private scene. The publications,
scientific or popular, the books, the magazines, the organization of the
meetings, the registering and curating of the meteorites, the organizing and
equipping of the small and big meteorite exhibitions, the recovering of the
new and old finds, the rerrecting of monuments, the educational outreach -
simply everything. I was told, that the last scientific meteorite
undertaking of the universities there dates back to the 1950ies.
There. So far: great. Though a few years ago, a single scientist (so I was
told)- absolutely imprudently - managed, that a meteorite law was
introduced. That from then on - each and every meteorite, all and not only
the Polish finds - require an export permit, if they shall be sent out of
Poland.
In practice, that means the complete isolation of the Polish meteorite scene
from World meteoritics.
Meteoritics lives from the exchange of the stones. That law means the end
and the complete eradication of Polish meteoritics after more than 200
years, if anyone would obey to it.

And here, Richard, we have the ethical question.
What ranks higher? A formal administrative short-time regulation,
penetrating the will of more or less a single person with no expert
competence in that field - or the maintenance of a 200-years-lasting
important science tradition of a whole country. A law, which means nothing
else, then the extermination of culture.
There you have to make your decision, which is more important for you.
That is an ethical question. I believe most would come to the personal
conclusion, that the Polish collectors should be now supported more than
ever.


Well and else, in general, the legal situation in a country is in the very
most cases not so simple as often here suggested. A layman, and often the
expert neither, can't look through.
Very funny example. Also to demonstrate, that the meteorite-complex we're
all hanging somewhat too high,
from a different field.
In my federal home state, there it is strictly forbidden for a hunter or
anyone, to remove an artifact from the soil. Knowing that - everyone would
say, somebody selling an artifact, claiming to have it found by himself in
Bavaria would act illegal. Rrrrrrrright?
But! An odd thing - by law you will obtain ownership on the artifact if you
pick it up, despite the act of picking it up still being illegal! Weird,
isn't it? Well and in the neighbor federal states, we have again different
laws.
I chose that example, to demonstrate the ratios:
The chief of the highest archeological office stated, that so per year 1.2
millions of artifacts would be lost for the Bavarian state (sounds a little
bit strange to me, cause that would mean, that every tenth citizen, from
suckling to dodderer would pick up at least once per year an artifact. No
idea, what is counted here to be an artifact).
1.2 million artifacts per year - meteorites found per year in Bavaria?
0.021 pieces per year.

Hence it would make no sense here, like in all European countries neither,
to lump artifacts and meteorites together.


Huh, and already I come soon to an end now.

Richard,
You have to consider:

Who made the law and with which motivation?
When happened that?
How does the law fit in the legal system of the country. Is it valuable?
Which other laws exist in that country, which could contradict this law?
Does the law serve for the purpose it was made?
Causes the law damage to meteoritics in that very country?
Would the very meteorite exist at all, if all involved would have obeyed to
that law?
Do I do harm in buying this meteorite and if yes, to whom?
Do I ask for the reversal of proof?
Is the law ethically supportable?


Theoretically.
Practically, ask, how often or when ever somebody was sentenced for hunting,
selling or collecting a meteorite.
Will be difficult to find cases in history.

Because as fairly nobody knows about possible meteorite legislation, neither
meteorites,
fairly nobody gives any importance to prosecute possible violations against.
Cause they are so rare, almost nobody is interested in meteorites, and it
seems that widely it is tolerated that private people are involved in
meteorites - cause most scientists, experts etc. are glad and happy, if some
new are found.


DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER,
DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER,
DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER:
That will be your individual decision. I explicitly don't invite to commit
an administrative offense. Nor do I write in my function as IMCA-Beppo. All
that written is of theoretical nature and would reflect at best my personal
50 cents.


More important would be now:

The situation currently is like that: If the introducing of new laws
continues in such a pace, as observed the recent years,
then meteorite research, institutional collecting, private collecting and
commerce
will be in near future essentially only:

Dry-Lake H5/L6-W3ers - Franconia irons and every 5 or 10 years a single new
eucrite.
+ for science additionally the Antarctic ones.

Why? Because significant amounts of meteorites come only from the dry
deserts.
If we introduce everywhere laws, we will get everywhere Australia or
Algeria.
The hot deserts tend to be in countries, which are either not experienced in
meteoritics or not directly liberal.
Large amounts of finds are necessary for generating scientifically more
relevant rare types.
USA will remain the only free country left. In Europe we have no deserts.
Check the bulletins, how few or many of the rare types were found in the
US-deserts.

It is a misconception, that meteorites would pop out by themselves from the
ground and that they would roll by own will into the labs and museums.
If one takes with laws all possibilities, that those people finding all
these meteorites can cover their costs or can do make a living from their
finds,
then nobody will hunt and find anymore.
It is a misconception too, that the private sector would be hostile to the
institutional sector.
For a finder it doesn't matter whether his work will be rewarded by a
private collector or an university.

If the private amateurs and pros don't hunt anymore, the shortfall can't be
compensated by public funded scientific expeditions. There aren't any. Only
the Suisse-Team. All others, and there were only a few, the Euromets, the
Brits, now the Arabs - brought relatively poor results and are compared to
the free scene not cost-efficient. They are too expensive. The reason, why
not more are carried out.

Antarctica - the search there is so horribly expensive, that no private
entrepreneur would ever hunt there for commercial reasons.
Whether the finds there made by ANSMET, PRIC, NIPR could be an alternative
for the Maghreb countries, for Australia, South Africa - I don't know. They
can't be owned. They are not suitable for building up a national collection
(like the Unesco working group called for) nor are there many countries able
to spend so much money for such campaigns, nor will be the possibility to
borrow Antarctic samples be a sufficient groundwork to establish a national
meteorite science in these desert countries.

So we all have to ask: Do we want that?

And if we have done that - and I hope I can take a certain answer for
granted -
then we have to ask, what can we do in the individual countries, to improve
the situation there, where it is urgently necessary; to preserve the status
quo, where it is endangered to be lost;
and what to do to invert the situation, where it went south.

One has to think about creating and to preserve the surrounding conditions,
and in most cases that means: the legal conditions, that like it once was
intended, as many new meteorites as possible can be generated and that the
shares necessary will end at those national and international institutes,
which do want that stuff at all - and that at the lowest possible costs -
which means to involve the private collectors.
Because - an experience from the last 10 years - the production of the main
load of meteorites of the World is meanwhile not financed by tax-money
anymore, but by the private collectors, who make these finds possible at all
in purchasing their specimens.


Gosh is that loooooong, I hope it makes sense.

But the necessary changes (or where it has to be, the preventing of changes)
can only happen,
if the meteoricists and curators are integrated.
The private sector has not the slightest possibility of influencing legal
situations.

I don't know, I'm often scolded to mention names,
that that would be impolite - and that many scientists and curators would
read the list too.
But they don't take part in the discussion - we hear here only sometimes
from Pete of Scotland something to that topic.
Are there so huge fears of contact?
Indifference it can't be - here on the list are assembled all those people,
who have generated the most meteorites of our times, dozens of Niningers you
have here.

And meteoritics is and was from the beginning on a highly global affair.
There it never was possible that everyone cooks his own little soup - oops a
germanism - that everyone does his own little thing.
Meteorites are so internationalized, that even nations from all the World
are meeting at the South Pole to find them!

And of course I'm nor writing in a very diplomatic way - it's no time left
anymore to call a spade not a spade.

The laws are new. With every law we create a completely brand-new situation,
wherefore we have no experiences from past! You all saw, how fast the desert
and the meteorite explosion came - just the same fast the world meteoritics
implosion can pass off.

Almost each and every year, we see a new country committing meteoritical
suicide.

If all desert countries will follow the track of the lemmings..
....
then meteoritics can say: That was it. Good night.


O.k.
Now I take my pills and go back to bed. (such a cold I caught)

That posting has to last for the rest of the year.
Martin



 




   

   


    




  



-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Richard
Montgomery
Gesendet: Sonntag, 13. M?rz 2011 02:21
An: Impactika at aol.com; meteoritekid at gmail.com;
meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Gebel Kamil

Hi List. Anne brings up an important point, "Be careful out there" and as
history has pointed out (our recent 'hello and welcome home' thread
topic )....(or back when a certain really really large Campo was almost
brought here)....

When I initiated this thread I was simply wondering about Gebel Kamil's TKW;

and now, thank you Jason, I know a bit more about Egyptian perspective.

Yet Anne's advice formulates this new question: should I/we all be
concerned about now owning (or eventually passing along) meteorites with
questionable legal provenence? Does this bring into question the specimens

in my collection for which I am not carrying certain export documentation?
Where/who/when brought SAs into the market, for example...and which ones
were export approved, given changing times and regimes?

When we take it further into the previous "collection card" issue we just
recently discussed, what repurcusions are looming out there? Should we also

have time-sensitive national legal definitions? (I'd hate to lose my large
Camel Dongas, or those of you holding pre-export permission anythings.)

Are posthumus or retrograde export laws possible? Will BLM decide to retro?

No, I'm not really worried, but Greg C.'s initial comment began to make me
wonder. I don't want to own anything deemed illegal.

-Richard Montgomery
Received on Sun 13 Mar 2011 05:48:28 PM PDT