[meteorite-list] Name of Texas Fall: Ash Creek

[Chris Peterson]

Perhaps those who seek to commercially trade new falls within the first few 
weeks of recovery need to be a bit more careful with _their_ nomenclature. 
There is a reason why a formal naming process exists (and face it, "West" is 
a horrible name that should never have been used). IMO, if you're going to 
sell early, you shouldn't give it a name at all, just a description ("the 
recent, as-yet-unnamed fall near West, Texas").

I can say with some confidence, as somebody who only deals with meteorites 
in scientific collections, that this name "change" isn't going to cause any 
confusion at all.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Ford" <mark.ford at ssl.gb.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Name of Texas Fall: Ash Creek


> Steve has a point there, is the new name cross correlated in some way
> with 'West' in the actual database? (It just came up as Ash Creek when I
> searched).  - Just worries me it's a great way to loose a few thousand
> specimens of a fall, if in the future you can't cross correlate the
> label names!
>
> I also wonder if there was any way a name could be officially assigned
> at the time of a fall rather than several months after it's recovered?
>
> Out of interest, is the name that's given the nearest place/town to the
> first recovery, or to the majority location of the finds? How's it
> decided?
>
> Best,
> Mark
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