Hi,
The land area of the U.S.A. (true dry land, excluding
portions of the Great Lakes and other waters within
the boundaries of the nation) constitutes 1.8% of the
total area of the planet and 6.25% of the land area
of the planet.
If you will grant that few meteorites are recovered at
sea, that means that, given a random distribution,
6.25% of all Lunar meteorites SHOULD be found in
the U.S.A., all other factors being equal. If that were
true (it's not, I guess) four of the 68 Lunars would
be of American origin.
Therefore, the level of hunting scrutiny is not high
enough in the U.S. to catch them. The known Lunars
are from hunting environments that favor high
recovery rates (Oman, Sahara, NWA obviously).
Rob Matson's suggestions about potential future
finders are additionally perspicacious because those
hunters hunt similar environments to those where
Lunars have been found, with long accumulation
times of stones and where a stone sticks out and
gets your attention.
There is always the chance an inconspicuous Lunar
has been found but not identified. If you're looking
for a location that might contain such a rare type,
your best chances are in an area where stones of
the greatest terrestrial exposure age have been
found in the past.
Sterling K. Webb
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Meteorites USA" <e...@meteoritesusa.com>
To: <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] How Many Lunar Meteorites?
I also noticed, there are no Lunar meteorites recovered in the USA.
Yet...
Does this still hold true?
Eric
On 8/23/2010 11:53 AM, Randy Korotev wrote:
Dear Eric:
My alphanumeric list contains 140 named stones,
http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites_list_alpha.htm
with the caveat that some do not actually have official names yet
(e.g., "Unnamed 12"). They're on the list because I've analyzed them
and know them to be lunar. That's the main reason that my number,
140, is larger than the MetBull number, 130. It's my hope that all
the unnamed get official names someday.
"Does this mean there are 130 Lunar meteorites that have been
recovered and classified, Ever?" Stones, yes; meteorites, no.
My composition-ordered list has only 68 meteorites because of known
or strongly-suspected pairings.
http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites_list_alumina.htm
Norbert Classen keeps close tabs on this and has 67 on his list (he
and I both know about one that is on my list but may not be on his
list yet):
http://www.meteoris.de/luna/list.html
So, ~68 is the total number of known lunar meteorites. That
information is not easily available from the MetBull database. It
sometimes takes years to establish that different named stones are or
are not paired.
A confusion for your calculations is that practically every
individual lunar and martian meteorite stone gets it's own name and
line-item in the MetBull database whereas all Allende stones have one
name.
Randy
At 12:40 PM 8/23/2010 Monday, you wrote:
Hi List,
I know this has been talked about on-list but... I keep getting this
question, or people that say they have found a "Lunar" meteorite.
I'm wondering how many there actually are. I've heard numbers thrown
about haphazardly, but no one has been able to give me a clear and
concise answer.
The Met-Bull has "...130 records found for meteorites with
historical types that contain "Lunar"...'
Does this mean there are 130 Lunar meteorites that have been
recovered and classified, Ever? Or is my search flawed? (as a side
note, it also says there are "...92 records found for meteorites
with historical types that contain "Martian"...")
Dr. Randy Korotev's "List of Lunar Meteorites" on the Washinton
University website has the number at 140.
http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites_list_alpha.htm
Just for giggles I wanted to know how many total classified
meteorites there actually were on the planet.
"...39146 valid meteorite names; 11959 provisional names; 4589
full-text writeups..."
That's a whopping 51,105 classifications. Wow!
Doing some simple math, 130 Lunar meteorites out of 51,105 total
classifications means that "Lunars" only makeup about 0.254% of the
total number of meteorite ever classified. (0.180% for Martian
meteorites).
Are these number correct?
Regards,
Eric
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