[meteorite-list] Mifflin, Amiss

From: Thunder Stone <stanleygregr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 22:44:36 -0700
Message-ID: <SNT117-W4162135319394E8B5B36E4D2850_at_phx.gbl>

Jason:

Thanks so much for shedding the light on this. It's too bad that even dealers you can trust get trapped into scams.

It looks like a chunk of Chergach to me.

Greg S.


> Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 18:12:16 -0700
> From: jasonutas at gmail.com
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Mifflin, Amiss
>
> Hello All,
>
> My story begins in the summer of last year. I saw some strange pieces
> of 'Mifflin' on ebay that I thought looked funny. People were talking
> about the meteorite having two lithologies, but...the slices and
> individuals that I saw looked 'off.' A select few looked like
> H-chondrites, and they had the telltale signs of wear that
> freshly-imported Moroccan falls bear: worn edges, exposed metal flakes
> on protruding corners (where the fusion crust had been worn off due to
> improper packing), etc.
>
> At the time, I did nothing but send a private email to Anne Black
> notifying her of my suspicions. I spoke with some other prominent
> list-members addressing it, and they all agreed that the material
> looked funny, but that nothing could be done about it given the
> required burden of proof.
>
> So, I sat on my hands for several months.
>
> Just over a month ago, I saw a piece of the funny-looking 'Mifflin' on
> ebay. It looked similar to some pieces that I remembered seeing on
> ebay months before, and, being an end-cut, I was able to see both the
> stone's funny-looking inside -- and the apparent metal grains on the
> stone's exterior.
>
> I used the 'buy-it-now' option to purchase the end-cut, and it
> arrived while Peter and I were in Morocco. When we returned, I
> promptly shipped the end-cut off to Tony Irving of the University of
> Washington; he agreed to analyze the stone posthaste.
>
> The results came back, but Tony wanted to wait until the probe was
> recallibrated so that he could run it again to be sure.
>
> Lo and behold, he did confirm that my end-cut was an equilibrated
> H-chondrite, with an olivine Fa of 18.6. For comparison, Chergach and
> Bassikounou both have Fa contents of 18.4 and 18.6, respectively.
>
> University of Madison, Wisconsin performed most of the work on the
> Mifflin fall. Between them and the Field Museum, over twenty separate
> stones were analyzed. They were all L5. Mifflin is classified as an
> L5, with an Fa of ~24.9 +/- 0.2.
>
> I then sent Tony the link to the ebay auction so he could confirm that
> the piece that he had analyzed was indeed the piece that I had sent
> him. He did.
>
> I purchased my end-cut from Bryan Scarborough (IMCA), who purchased it
> from Michael Cottingham, who purchased it from Greg Catterton (IMCA),
> who purchased the stone with Carl Esparza from the finder.
>
> Carl told me the following story over the phone:
> He was contacted "out of the blue" by someone hunting in the Mifflin
> strewn-field. According to Carl, the finder stated that he thought
> there was a "conspiracy against him," because no one would offer him
> more than $5/g. and he believed his finds were worth more than that.
> So, according to Carl, he then offered the finder $10/g, and a deal was
> struck.
>
> But...the finder asked that he not be paid via paypal or wire
> transfer; he wanted cash mailed to a P.O. Box.
>
> So, Carl mailed the money to the P.O. Box and the first of two 'Mifflin'
> stones was over-nighted to him the next day. It should be noted that
> Carl included Greg Catterton as his partner in this deal, and Greg
> sent over several hundred dollars to help pay for the stones.
>
> Unfortunately, as Carl said over the phone, his old computer recently
> died, so he lacks the name and email address of the finder, as well as
> the number/address of the P.O. Box to which he sent the money. Carl
> is also unwilling to share the bank receipt from the transaction which
> would prove that he did make a large cash withdrawal for the stones.
> I asked Carl for the finder's phone number, but he told me that he had
> recently tried to call the finder, himself, only to find that the
> number had been disconnected.
> He was unwilling to share the number with me, regardless.
>
> On the phone, Carl suggested that his source had likely ripped him
> off, and he said that he believed that it was the reason why he had
> been asked to send the money untraceably, as he did; Carl described
> the situation as a "typical scam."
>
> He also suggested that the stones *might* be from an unrelated fall --
> or could be the result of Mifflin being an 'Almahata Sitta sort of
> fall.'
>
> I can't disprove either of those ideas, but they are unlikely for the
> following reasons:
>
> 1) Almahata Sitta is a unique event in the history of meteoritics.
> Different lithologies have been observed in many meteorites, but to
> have individual stones of completely different and unrelated meteorite
> types falling separately is unique. Out of the 1,238 accepted
> observed falls in the meteoritical bulletin, only one has exhibited
> individuals that have consisted of different meteorite types (for
> example, H + L, Ureilite + EH, etc).
>
> And it's not that we haven't been looking for similar events; with
> each and every fall, multiple stones are analyzed, and the simple fact
> of the matter is that they are always similar...with *one* exception.
>
> So, Almahata Sitta is an exception. How much of an exception? 0.08%
> of meteorite falls are like it. Less than a tenth of a percent.
> Possible...but extremely unlikely. We also have to wonder about why
> or how this hunter managed to find the only two H's from the fall that
> were recognized. Over twenty other stones were studied and this
> finder supposedly turned up two or three that were all H's. It's 'funny.'
>
> The other possibility that Carl advocated is that the stones may actually
> have been found in Wisconsin -- and they may be part of a new fall that
> somehow slipped under the radar. He initially suggested that they were
> from the fireball widely seen across the Midwest on May 10th, but, at the
> time, I had paypal records from Greg that stated that he had sent Carl the
> money for the stones as early as April 24th.
> So we ruled out that possibility..
>
> But, I agree; the stones could theoretically have come from a
> different fall. The end-cut that I bought showed no visible signs of
> weathering. No oxide, no anything. Given the weather in and around
> Mifflin at the time of the fall, we can assume that the stones were
> picked up within a week or so of having fallen. No AMS reports of
> anything in the region for the given timeframe doesn't disprove
> anything since meteorites often fall without much ado, but...two falls
> in the same place *at the same time?*
> Granted, it's possible. Not very likely, though.
>
> And you've still got to wonder about why no one else found any
> H-chondrites while looking for Mifflin. It's not like meteorites were
> laying thickly on the ground. Everyone who found stones out there put
> considerable time into hunting -- and they all found only L5's. So if
> Carl's source were telling the truth, and he did find the stones, it
> seems best to assume that he wasn't hunting in the Mifflin
> strewn-field, because, if he were, he would 1) probably have found
> L5's, and 2) other people would probably have found H's as well.
>
> The conclusion I draw from this is that the truth has become
> well-hidden. What is certain is that I have been refunded by
> Bryan, and I know for a fact that Bryan has been refunded by
> Michael Cottingham, who has in turn been refunded by Greg Catterton.
>
> What I have heard, however, is that Carl has been defending the
> legitimacy of his stones, and is refusing to refund Greg Catterton.
>
> Regardless of whether the material is Mifflin or another meteorite
> (from Wisconsin or from NWA -- it doesn't matter), the simple fact
> of the matter is that the material sold by Carl has been shown to be
> different from how it was advertised, and as such, he should be
> willing to accept its return for a refund. If he wishes to get it
> analyzed and sell it to others as a new meteorite, that is his
> concern.
>
> I am fairly certain that Bryan, Michael, and Greg unknowingly sold the
> material as Mifflin, believing that it was indeed what they sold it
> as.
>
> That is my 2 cents.
>
> Regards,
> Jason Utas
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Received on Sun 08 May 2011 01:44:36 AM PDT