[meteorite-list] Meteorite Black Market

From: Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum <dorifry_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2013 14:45:10 -0500
Message-ID: <7C2B6601780C4F94B91039E48F2CAF8B_at_terryPC>

>From the Boston Globe:

 "Writing at the website of the excellent BBC Radio program "The Naked
Scientists," Audrey Tempelsman looks at the global trade in meteorites, and
finds a shadowy, globe-spanning gray market." "Many meteorite resellers,
Tempelsman writes, close their eyes to the legal aspects of the merchandise.
As Ralph Harvey, a geologist at Case Western Reserve University, tells
Tempelsman,"The skill level that some collectors have to get stones out of
Africa rivals that of drug dealers."

"The black market for meteorites"

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/06/09/the-black-market-for-meteorites/poFPgK5REldREpXFylFH6I/story.html

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>From the BigThink Blog:
"The Meteorite Black Market"
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/the-meteorite-black-market


"We have at our disposal a very limited number of [meteorite and asteroid]
specimens to study and exhibit," said Dr. Mario Di Martino, who led an
exhibition team to investigate the Gebel Kamil meteorite site in Egypt in
2009. Before his team's investigation could begin, however, the meteorites
were found by someone else and later sold privately in France. "He and other
members of the Gebel Kamil crater discovery team, he added, don't have the
money to buy them on the flourishing black market." Some meteorite
adventurers, however, turn to experts for analysis which cause some,
including Carl B. Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the
University of New Mexico, to argue the ambition of the private sector is
once again aiding sluggish public research."

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>From the China Daily and Daily Astronomy:

"Scientists see red over black-market meteorite sales"

"A black market in meteorites"
By William J. Broad (New York Times)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-04/17/content_12338995.htm

Contains the infamous quote:

"It's a black market," said Ralph P. Harvey, a geologist who directs the
United States search for meteorites in Antarctica. "It's as organized as any
drug trade and just as illegal."

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>From KSL radio:

"Meteorites Can Totally Make You Rich"

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=895&sid=20208234

"Looking for a place where wealth literally falls out of the sky? Head to
Rescue, California, where you can find meteorites which go for around $1,000
per gram. According toThe Los Angeles Times' Diana Marcum,there's a
different type of California "gold rush" going on, the result of a meteorite
leaving the Coloma-Lotus Valley of California littered with meteor fragments
fetching thousands of dollars on the meteor black market."

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There are many more articles that repeat and rehash the statements of Ralph
Harvey and the articles of William Broad.

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Phil Whitmer
Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum


 
Received on Sat 02 Mar 2013 02:45:10 PM PST