Hi Shawn,
I agree that the public needs to be informed about how to recover
meteorites in the field and preserve scientific data.
Recovering meteorites and their coordinates is vitally imporant to the
science of meteorites. However the degree of importance is also based in
part on how long a meteorite has been on the ground, whether it's on the
surface or is buried, the type of a meteorite it is, and the ground it's
recovered on. Meteorite fragments found on dry lake beds or anywhere on
"old ground", do in fact move. In my opinion coordinate data is still
valuable, but not as valuable as say data from a fresh meteorite fall.
This of course relates to the time a meteorite has been on the ground.
There are many variables to take into account, and I'm sure I'm
forgetting some but here's some of those variables or dynamics... If a
meteorite fall happened 1000 years ago, and the area it fell is NOT
subject to a lot of weathering, wind, rains, floods, etc, then each
coordinate is still very important to science and for locating more
fragments or other whole stones from the same meteorite fall. However,
if a meteorite fell say on a slope of ground, or a highly hostile
environment, weather and time will take over and the meteorite could
move miles from it's original fall location. This also depends on size
and weight of the stone, whether there was a flood, whether it was an
iron meteorite or a stone.
A stony iron meteorite strewnfield for example will show how coordinates
from a meteorite that fell many years ago is still vitally important to
science. This also goes to type. The Brenham meteorite strewnfield is a
perfect example of an older fall event that humans are just now
(geologically speaking) recovering. The recovery of more specimens from
this fall is due in large part from coordinates. Coordinates allow one
to "predict" with some accuracy where other larger or smaller pieces
"should" be located based on the dynamics of any given fall.
Some people would have you believe recording coordinates is not
important. I personally believe it is vitally important to the
advancement of meteorite science, and I'm reasonably sure the the vast
majority of meteorite hunters and scientists out there feel the same way.
Regards,
Eric Wichman
Meteorites USA
On 3/12/2010 10:16 PM, Shawn Alan wrote:
Hello List,
This has been a good topic and I can see the importance of people trying to
document finds of meteorites. If that be taking a photo and remembering where
you found it or explaining to your friends about the time you where in the
mountains and you found a strange rock. Each individuals experience will be
different and the knowledge that one might have in documentations of the
coordinates will vary as well.
A good example, at work a co worker told me a story about when he was a young
kid he would going off with some of his friends and look for meteorites. At the
time I bet they had no clue what they looked like or even if they really did
find them. At any rate by him sharing that story he was able to tell his
experience with me when he was a kid collecting meteorites.
Now from a scientific stand point he did a big mistake and didn’t bust out his
play school gps hand held devise from Toys R US and take the coordinates down.
He knew no difference what to do, nor do most people that are novice to
meteorite collecting, they just pick up the meteorite and have a great story to
tell. But if anything the veterans of meteorite collecting might want to set a
good example with people at large. However it's harder then excepted and I have
a big question I would like to address about the Meteorite Men show.
First I need to say I enjoyed the show and I hope for season two, thank you
Steve and Jeff. Also I can’t express the importance of shows that cover science
and I think we need more shows like this format. At any rate I have seen only
two episodes which were the first and the fifth episode twice. However the
thing that got to me was that at not time during those two episodes did any one
express the importance of documenting the coordinate of meteorites found during
each episode. What was stress was the secrecy of each location and the amount
the meteorites can cost on the open market.
This was further displayed in episode five where for 30 minutes you watched
Steve, Jeff, and Sonny pick up meteorite fragments after meteorite fragments
without stressing that in the field one should take the time to document the
find and record the information. The only thing that I did see that got
documented was on the screen how big their pocket books were getting from
finding meteorites on the dry lake bed.
These actions could send wrong messages to people about how to go about hunting
for meteorites that watched the show. If they see that the Meteorite Men are at
these secret locations, this secrecy can perpetuates the lack of importance of
documentation, they no better and are only doing what is seen on TV. I hope
with future shows the documenting process will be stressed more on how this
step furthers the progress of meteorite science.
Shawn Alan
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