[meteorite-list] WG: meteorites not being able to

[valparint at aol.com]

We need only look to Peru to understand the expertise and efficiency that 
governments can bring to bear in order to secure critical scientific data. 
The carpetbaggers that plundered the site of the recent fall merely 
recorded locations, masses, eyewitness accounts, and such like. They did 
absolutely nothing to secure the all-important mud hole! Maybe they are 
not all bad, though. They did donate specimens to scientists that had real 
microscopes and ion probes and what not.

Concerning the "unknown they are losing", is that the known-unknown or the 
unknown-unknown?

Paul Swartz

> Any scientific data that is lost to the country. Right now it might seem
> trivial, but just like antiquities, they are a non-renewable resource. 
> That
> meteorite will never fall again.
> And in the future, knowing where strewnfields are, how they oriented, 
> what
> class and quantity, could have some significant meaning.
> It's the unknown they are loosing.
>
> Mark Ferguson