[meteorite-list] Some thoughts on find coords

From: contact at meteorite-hunting.com <contact_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2012 10:57:16 -0600
Message-ID: <20120907105716.oi2n9v6674ks8wg4_at_webmail.meteorite-hunting.com>

Hi Marc, List,

First off, THANKS for all your efforts Marc. Publishing this data is a
valuable resource to the meteorite community and the scientific
meteoritics world at large.

"...is it really important to hide the find locations?..."

Only if there is a monetary or legal reason to do so.

I have long been a proponent of sharing meteorite find data.

However many hunters I have hunted with, some here on the Met List,
and many of those I've met in the field do not like to share find
coordinates for fear of losing meteorites to competition.
Understandably so...

However it goes deeper than that. Much deeper.

Unscrupulous hunters who don't care about land owners, permissions, or
other meteorite hunters are an extreme danger to the science of
meteorite recovery.

The danger lies in the fact that some of these unscrupulous hunters
trespass on land without gaining permission or even speaking with the
land owner. This damages the trust and report that many hunters and
scientists have worked very hard to cultivate. In some instances these
trespasses have resulted in hunters losing access to important parts
of meteorite strewnfields, and as such, meteorites were lost to
science and the collectors market.

Some of these "UNPROFESSIONAL" hunters have been arrested, run off
land, shot at, and this further damages the reputations of the
"professional" responsible meteorite hunters and scientists who work
together to build trust with locals and landowners.

An important distinction must be made between the professional hunter
and the unprofessional hunter.

The professional meteorite hunter/scientist cares about the law, the
landowners, the locals, and is considerate of other hunters.

The unprofessional hunter should not even be called a hunter and the
word POACHER should be used to describe their actions. The poachers do
not care about or respect the law, and they are a blight on the
meteorite world.

This makes local people wary of all meteorite hunters regardless of
their professionalism, especially when the media covers these stories
without fact checking and getting all sides. Irresponsible media
coverage is a bad thing for meteorite recovery.

Most hunters don't like to share find coordinates simply for fear of
losing meteorites to other hunters. It's very expensive to travel
halfway across the country on a meteorite recovery mission. Average
expenses (before purchasing meteorites from locals) tends to be around
$200 per day on average. This includes airfare/travel, fuel, hotel,
rental car, food, drink, and entertainment.

Most people know how expensive it is to recover new fall meteorites in
the field. Most times meteorites fall thousands of miles away. Which
means airfare is MUCH more expansive because one must purchase a
ticket with very little notice.

All this goes to the cost of meteorite recovery, and is a big reason
why hunters don't want to share find data. It becomes a business
decision. Some material gets donated for scientific study, and many
hunters sell material to collectors to recoup some of the costs of the
hunt, and hopefully can turn a profit as well. This profit can be used
to hunt and hopefully recover more future meteorite falls.

There is a middle ground here. One can be a professional hunter, gain
and keep the respect and trust of the landowners and other meteorite
recovery teams.

Sharing meteorite find coordinates works! It allows more meteorites to
be recovered. Period.

Sharing meteorite find coordinates creates more accurate data for
scientists and hunters alike. This data is then used to find more
meteorites. It's how it works.

NOT Sharing find coordinates, I would argue does more harm (to the
completeness of the strewnfield data) than good, because strewnfield
data is NOT wholly accurate, and LESS meteorite material is recovered
as a result.

I witnessed this in small part in West Texas, and much more so in
Mifflin, WI. Those of us who shared our find coordinates with one
another went on to find more meteorites. Those that did not have
access to this data did not find as many or any meteorites.

Our team kept the meteorite find coordinates a tightly guarded secret
within our little clique, and that I think was NOT to the benefit of
the whole of the strewnfield or other hunters.

Some hunters might get upset with me here for saying this. The
reasoning behind keeping find data secret was out of respect for
others on our team. We had an agreement that we would share only with
our team. Even though I am for sharing find coordinates, I had to
honor the agreement while in the field. Later, after everything was
said and done, I was given permission by all those on our team to
release and share with the rest of the meteorite community that
strewnfield map I had compiled. As such, many more hunters also shared
their data with me, and we published their find data on the map as
well, creating the most detailed strewnfield map to date of the
Mifflin Strewnfield. This helped more people recover meteorites as
well and gave a detailed view of the entire strewnfield.

Back to the hunt... My opinion is that because we shared this data
within our group, more people in our group found meteorites. It's
simple logic.

Even with RADAR it was still VERY difficult to recover stones. RADAR
is not the end all be all in meteorite hunting. It's just ONE tool in
the meteorite recovery toolbox. Find coordinate only verify RADAR and
RADAR does NOT always mark the actual place where meteorites are
found. Upper level winds can blow smaller stones way out from under
the RADAR returns on the map. Both Ash Creek and Mifflin proves this
to be the case.

I argue that BECAUSE we all shared our find data with one another, we
all (most of us) recovered more meteorites as a direct result. The
same can be said with sharing with locals.

When everyone holds their cards close the the vest so to speak, data
is cloudy at best, information is hard to come by, and meteorite
recovery becomes a guessing game.

Sharing meteorite find data works. More data means more accurate
projection of the meteorite strewnfield. The more accurate the data
one has, the more meteorites are recovered as a result of that data.

That has been proven time and again. Yet some people would still argue
that more data does not mean that one will automatically find more
meteorites. While that is partly true, it's incomplete. The reason
more data doesn't always mean more meteorites will be recovered is
simply because most of the "recoverable" meteorites may have already
been recovered. A recoverable meteorite is one that is on land which
one has access to. If a meteorite fell in the water, or on land that
is either covered in thick vegetation or where the landowner has
refused entry to meteorite hunters, then meteorites will likely not
be recovered in that area unless the landowner finds them.

The more information that is available the better. More data equals
more meteorites recovered. "Riff Raff" will still be around regardless
of published data or not.

Most times, speed of meteorite recovery is vital. Weather and or
planting and harvesting plays a major role in how much meteorite
material can be recovered from any given fall before they are buried
or destroyed and lost forever to science and collectors.

I have always supported the publishing of find coordinates, and kudos
to everyone who has shared with others. This helps the meteorite
hunter, collector, and the scientific community at large. We're all
better off because of shared data.

It might, at first glance seem counter-intuitive to publish data, but
without more accurate data, we wouldn't be able to recover as many
meteorites. Period.

Thank you Marc, and all the other scientists and hunters who see the
true value in publishing find data so more meteorites can be recovered.

Regards,
Eric Wichman



Quoting Marc Fries <chief_scientist at galacticanalytics.com>:

> Greetings all
>
> I've been talking with a few people about logging the Battle
> Mountain meteorites, and I'd like to start some discussion on the
> topic of find coordinates. This is NOT directed at any one person,
> but I would like to editorialize a bit. I'm getting a lot of
> push-back about printing find coordinates and I'd like to open the
> topic to general discussion.
>
> Historically, the locations of found meteorites have been a closely
> guarded secret. That made a lot of sense when meteorite hunting
> relied most heavily on eyewitness reports. A hunter could easily put
> in many, many miles of walking before coming across a meteorite.
> For finds that are made with weather radar, however, I don't think
> its the same situation. When I post radar analyses, it is like
> posting a treasure map that says, "Go Here". At that point
> everyone knows where the meteorites are, and it seems to me that
> the locations of individual stones aren't nearly as important as
> they were in the past. (Strewn fields without detailed radar data
> are another matter, of course.) Where those locations do matter are
> to A) the science behind describing the meteorite fall, and B) the
> value of the individual meteorite since a well-documented meteorite
> should be worth more than a random stone from a given fall.
>
> I am a scientist, and my first instinct is to collect, analyze, and
> -share- data. I understand where that is at odds with the level of
> secrecy needed in the past, but I think that that level of secrecy
> is no longer needed and actually works contrary to the value of
> meteorites, both monetary and scientific. On the Galactic Analytics
> website, I'm willing to go against my better instincts and hide find
> locations, at least until a scientific paper is released describing
> the fall. But to be honest, I think that's a little silly - I'll
> basically have a table showing meteorites with the find locations
> redacted, and then you can scroll down the page a bit and see a map
> showing where the meteorites are.
>
> So let me throw this out there as a general question - is it really
> important to hide the find locations?
>
> Cheers,
> Marc Fries
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Received on Fri 07 Sep 2012 12:57:16 PM PDT