[meteorite-list] WG: Asian falls

Thu Dec 30 09:19:58 EST 2010

Hi Jason,

some of the federal laws in Australia were even earlier in place.
The find numbers, correct me if I'm wrong, were produced mainly by
"official" expeditions, two times Euromet (one of them at least hopelessly
unsuccessful  Mundrabillas, Millbillillies, three OCs - stuff in a quantity
a meteorite dealer would charge you today with 15-20k$) and one carried out
by the school of mines.
15 published new finds for a whole continent with deserts, where the past
proved, that they are very productive for meteorite finds - and that in THE
decade, where the big harvest took place in the deserts of the African,
Asian, and North-American continent,
is very unsatisfying, especially in a country of such a long and in former
times remarkable meteorite tradition.
The problem is, that since the 1990ies, no serious meteorite expedition
wasn't carried out anymore by universities there, as well as the basic work
(see the 500 unclassified finds) was neglected.
So the Australian meteoricists fall short regarding the special meaning and
status, the Aussie meteorites are given in Australian legislation.
Consequently this legislation isn't tenable anymore.

How meteorites are found, I think everyone of us here on the list knows, as
well as those involved in Australian projects, at least partially, do know.
Therefore I allow myself to criticize the legal situation and the efforts
undertaken there.
Some blogs of the "expeditions" there, you have on internet. A handful
people, for a few days in the desert,
hence less professional than any of the amateur hunters.
The fireball network, I'm allowed to criticize, because it is partially
financed by my tax-money, I'm generating with meteorite sales.
The costs and the equipment, the goals and the predicted find rates, of this
project, you'll find on internet.
They admit there, and the find area and the size of the covered area are
almost the best condition, one can have for meteorite finding, they admit
there, that they even weren't looking for all the droppers, they were able
to narrow down.
Here in Europe we have fundamentally different experiences and methods with
our fireball network.
We learned, that whenever possible, the help and the manpower of amateur
hunters has to be used, to find the stones, which the cameras had
documented. Therefore the data and predicted fall areas are open to
everyone.
If you take Neuschwanstein for instance - hundreds of people were hunting
for three years in a difficult terrain, and if you take your North American
showers, we have it always here on the list, there you know, what for a
large number of participants and what time-spans are necessary to generate
the resulting tkws.
In Australia, you have an easy accessible flat terrain with less vegetation
than here in Europe, the efforts to spend to find the droppers would be much
lower than here - but even that isn't done there.
And keeping in mind, that the camera stations here in Europe are maintained
by volunteer amateurs, cost-free, as well as the hunts are done by
volunteers cost-free - and finally if I think, that the large European
fireball net costs only a few thousands per year, but the small Australian
net a couple of hundreds of thousands,
then I can express my doubts, whether my tax-money (if I'm not allowed to
use it for maintaining my yacht, my castle, my Bentley-collection, my riding
horses, like almost all other meteorite dealers)
couldn't be used more effectively if used for meteoritical purposes,
as long as the Aussie-network methodically isn't running lege artis.

The problem is, that the Australians, other than in other countries, can't
avail themselves of the enormous, but free, help of amateur hunters and
trained expert private hunters.
Because with their laws, they created - even independently from individual
mentality - legal artificial obstacles to do so.

And these laws, see also the federal laws there, are an anachronism from
those times, when there were still so few finds a year, that it could have
been worth to try to go the way of disappropriation and cutting personal
rights.

Well, it turned out, and that very soon, to have been a misjudgement.
I object to the Aussie meteoricists and those involved, to adhere still
today to that misjudgement by all means, ignoring the experiences and stats
collected over the recent decades in their own country as well as in other
countries.

Monetary values, Jason, I don't believe them to be an argument. At current
prices it wouldn't make sense for a nomad to bend down to pick up an
weathered OC.
And you and your colleagues, the sparetime hunters in USA, who generate so
many new finds - and there I think we're together, to find an achondrite, to
find a Martian or something like Sonny's CM1 you have to generate large find
rates - they are doing it because of their enthusiasm - economically it
isn't lucrative.

And btw. the argument doesn't hold water in the Aussie case, note that the
rights of ownership aren't trimmed for the Australian tektites, and such a
flanged button, you know that they fetch much higher prices than most
meteorites.
Also a proof that the Aussie legislation is not a naturally grown necessity,
but an arbitrariness.

So, that is the second problem. Those, who shoulder the laborious and
time-consuming work of meteorite hunting, for fun or for profit motives,
makes no difference, hence those, who generate almost all meteoritic finds
outside of Antarctica and with that, the base of meteorite science,
simply can't go into the Aussie desert to find the meteorites for Bevan et
al. getting more happy.

Third problem is,
in such countries, where no meteorites are found, meteorite science has a
difficult stand.
And even worse, if you kill the meteorite finders and with them the
meteorites, if you eliminate the private collecting culture and tradition,
you will loose inevitably on the long run also your academic meteorite
tradition.
(Piquancy - see that Bevan, as an Englishman, doesn't espouse such rigid
restrictions in his home country...)

And even worse. Most finds are made in desert countries, with no meteorite
science at all.
If you forbid all collecting activities and with that all new finds, you
can't establish a meteorite science there, because it would be obsolete.

For me it is no question, that we would have dozens, if not hundreds of
published Aussie meteorites more and with them, naturally, also all those
scientifically more interesting finds like the rare carbonaceous ones and
the planetaries, if we would have there a more civilized meteorite
legislation, which reflects more the necessities of that branch of science
and the modern state of art.

And in this respect, I think, it is legitimate to say something against
these hardliners or mules with their antiquated imaginations and their
deficiencies in their working knowledge.
How meteorites are and were generated for 200 years now, a meteoricists,
occupied also with the complex of meteorite laws, has to know. What methods
you have to apply to generate meteorites is known since the late 19th
century and which methods one has to apply is known at latest since the late
1960ies from the UNESCO meteorite debate, whereof the Aussie laws are a
direct result.

And in my eyes it is simply dishonest to create the bugaboo, that private
meteorite people would compete with scientists. That doesn't reflect the
reality, neither the history. 
It is dishonest, to state, that those, who generated most of that, laying in
the institutes, being the substance of that science, that those who made the
meteorites accessible and especially in recent times also so affordable for
any and all institutes and researchers around the world, also in countries,
who never would be able to afford an Antarctic program, that those, who are
recovering most of the new falls and increased the tkws of the historic
ones, that those, who do the larger portion of the public outreach, and
hence the so necessary advertizing for that branch of science, that those,
who the prominent forerunners, the curators and researchers of today's
scientists were working hand in hand with, that those, who do the basic work
so much more efficiently and therefore cheaper for the public budgets, the
very work, most meteoricists aren't able to do, due to the lack of manpower
or funds or sometimes also interest,

that these would be harmful for science.

And especially dishonest it is, to call them parasites and to lump them
together with tomb raiders, and criminals illegally trading important
cultural items,
in consciously misinterpreting existing laws or in creating, which is in
states of laws problematic, extra laws for the singular case.

Such an opinion one even can't hardly call outdated, because it never was
common sense in 200 years of meteoritics.
That hysteria - remember the hilarious example I gave, were - seriously! -
the Antarctic meteorite group made a drama, that the Antarctic meteorites
have to be protected by laws from private ownership, cause else the Huns
would invade South Pole -
Well, in that hysteria I see, if we let the few well-poisoners aside, simply
a deficit in the technical and historical education and training of the
young meteoricists.

Well, to come back.

Jason, if it's so, like you say,
what could be said then against, to give up the Aussie restrictions?
What would be then a danger?
Do you believe, that then the glorious number of fifteen published new
Aussie-meteorites in a whole decade would be endangered to fall short of?
Where then should be a risk?
And whether those people, who really know, how to find meteorites, would
come to Australia, I think, we can leave to them. If they come, fine. If not
- worse than the last decade it hardly can't get there.

And here we are again at the essential point:

All prohibitionists were over all these year not able,
to deliver any indication, what a prohibition or a disappropriation has
brought or even only theoretically could bring for an advantage.

We all are missing the beef!

And that makes the debate so strange, that one could get the impression,
that it isn't about the meteorites themselves or the greater good of the
individual nations or for science at all!
But in principle rather a hollow (but nevertheless destructive) harping on
about principles by a few egomaniacs or by people with no greater insights
in meteoritics.

But there might by hope.
I like more such modest voices like e.g. Bland in the Gebel Kamil article,
if you remember,
who expressed the dilemma - if you classify the NWAs, you make the
protagonistic yellers angry. If you don't, you have a short-fall of the very
objects of our research.  And finally someone, who gave a realistic figure
of the monetary value, how neglectible the volume is - and not the grotesque
fairy-tale-numbers those old bones voice against their better knowledge, to
haul up that quite innocent small meteorite finding thing to a supposed
crime of black-billion-marketing drugs, weapons, protected wildlife, art,
archaeological items, to generate more public interest for their doubtful
goals and achieving, that this ridiculously small affair could be subdued
under such holy and mighty laws like e.g. the UNESCO conventions. 
 (Strange enough, that sometimes also you hear a curator among these voices,
where then the meteorite collector asks himself, if that museum or institute
wouldn't do better, to employ a more skilled person, who has a more
realistic idea about find volumes and meteorite prices, to save the tight
budgets better..)

So. Try and error.
Australia made that legitimate try of prohibition - the results seems to
show, that it was an error.
Other countries currently try to make the same error, I guess, one should
protect them against that error.
If a try turns out to be an error,
then one should do the next try.

Now maybe, Jason, you will ask, why they should make that try at all?

I would answer, naïve as I am, because they are not my butcher from my last
post, they are meteoricists and have chosen that profession for themselves.

Rhetorically, as I know you, you would try perhaps to say,
who are you, that you feel entitled to make such statements?

Then I'll answer you - a nobody. You're correct, we can't take part in this
discussion, it has to be a discussion between academically approved and
appointed scientists.
Meteorite finders, meteorite dealers, meteorite collectors - we're the
suppliers for scientists, the pizza delivery boys only.
We can't take part in that discussion, and that btw. independently from
class conceit.
Problem only is, if you shoot the pizza boy and if you're not able to cook
by your own, you will stay hungry.  ;-) Don't let North Africa, don't let
Australia starve.
For they know not what they do.

Best!
Martin

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Jason
Utas
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 30. Dezember 2010 09:24
An: Meteorite-list
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] WG: Asian falls

Martin, All,
I would like to point out that the law prohibiting the approved export
of meteorites from Australia, the "Protection of Movable Cultural
Heritage Act," was passed in 1986.

309 meteorites have been recovered, analyzed, and officially published
in Australia since then, not including the relict iron recently found.

Breaking statistics up by date alone can lead to deceiving
conclusions.  Most of the meteorites found in Australia in the past
thirty years were found between 1990 and 1994, several years after the
prohibitive laws had been passed.

So, yes, it's true that relatively few meteorites have been found in
Australia in the past decade.  But no new laws were introduced around
the year 2000, so logic would lead us to conclude that prohibitive
export laws are not the culprit.

Why, then, did rates fall so dramatically?  I'm not sure.

I'm guessing it was the influx of Saharan and NWA meteorites that
caused market prices to bottom out.  All of a sudden, a CK4 like
Maralinga wasn't worth untold hundreds per gram.  Stones like Camel
Donga and Millbillillie have dropped to thirty or so percent of what
they used to sell for -- and ordinary chondrites like Hamilton, Cook
007 and others now sell on ebay for cents per gram, instead of the few
dollars or so they fetched ten or more years ago.

And the subsistence wage in Australia is considerably higher than in
Morocco (it takes more money to live above the poverty line).  So
while someone in Morocco might be able to live reasonably well if they
sell their stones for a few cents per gram, the same is likely not
true for someone in Australia.

That's my best guess, anyways.  If you go through the Meteoritical
Bulletin, you'll notice that very few, if any, of the meteorites were
actually found by meteorite dealers; they were found by Aussies, and
they were found well after the passing of the 1986 law.

Regards,
Jason

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Martin Altmann
<altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
> Because I'm very content with Canada.
>
> They learned from the Tagish Lake debacle.
> And eased afterwards the strictest interpretation, their laws allowed in
> practice.
> With better results following.
> Buzzard Coulee got therefore a much higher tkw and a better availability
for
> everyone, institutions and private collectors;
> you saw how suddenly new masses of Springwater were found;
> or remember that crater building iron - I forgot the name.
>
> Never the right of ownership was challenged by Canadian laws, but only
what
> finders could do with their property, in past leading to such bizarre
> situations, that the owner of the second St-Robert stone, desperately
wanted
> to sell, but was not able to do so, because no Canadian institute was
> interested in, although he asked not more the Canadian survey had paid for
> the 1st stone, but on the other hand, wasn't allowed to sell it outside of
> Canada - a legally more than unsatisfying situation.
>
> Meanwhile Canadian institutes allow export clearance for all stones, they
> don't need.
> O.k. it's somewhat uncomfortable and takes time, but it is fair.
> They pay very fair prices for Canadian finds, if they decide to acquire
> them. (not anymore that funny reward proposed on radio: 100$ per stone
found
> of Tagish Lake ;-).
>
> And you don't have to forget, that in contrast to such countries with
> prohibition like Algeria, Poland, Argentina with all in all no scientific
> interest in meteorites, or countries with constitutionally more than
> problematic laws like Australia and so on,
> the Canadians maintain a real good meteorite science and a vivid
> institutional collecting,
> of course also including the important hot desert finds.
>
> So all in all, Canada would be a very good example (unfortunately so far
the
> ooonly example) for meteoricists like e.g. Bevan, suffering under the
> unreasonable legislation of their countries, how it could be done better.
>
> Best!
> Martin
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Chris
> Spratt
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 30. Dezember 2010 01:26
> An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] WG: Asian falls
>
> You left out Canada.
>
> Chris
> (Via my iPhone)
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