[meteorite-list] Fwd: From Blaine Reed

[JoshuaTreeMuseum]

Well alrighty then!  The science is settled.

Phil Whitmer
Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum
----------------------------------------------

Steve,

Regarding your ridiculous "High Noon" challenge - even though I was
not there YOU HAVE LOST!!

Does this look familiar   http://www.impactika.com/images/fake5000.jpg

Well IT SHOULD!!

I got this (along with 2 other samples) from the guy on 2000 Rd in
Delta you "hired" to cut it.

As I do very little on line (and even less on E-Bay), I really did not
know what rock all of the NWA 5000 supposed pairing fuss was about. I
happened to bump into this gem
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Colorado-Lunar-Meteorite-/120781889556?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c1f296014
while looking for something else in the E-Bay listings today. I
immediately recognized it as something I already had a piece of!

I have already analyzed this stuff and found it to be wholly
terrestrial (as were the other two specimens you gave the rock shop).
I finally got to analyze a nice specimen of the real NWA 5000 in
Denver last week (which, in my opinion does not look much like your
stuff at all, aside from the breccia texture. But then what do I know,
I only have a bachelor's in geology with minors in math, physics and
chemistry and a meteorite dealer for 25 years now but YOU have an
Audio Visual degree!).

Any way: HERE ARE THE RESULTS: I ran both of these in two different
modes for a better element coverage. Soils mode (the one that is best
for accurately picking up very low level stuff in rocks and dirt), is
not set up to see Si or Mg in my machine, so I use "Mining" mode to
see those often important elements (among others). This mode is not as
accurate in the numbers reported as soils, but it gives a pretty darn
good ball-park number (this really does not matter when comparing two
rocks run on the same machine. Any errors in calibration accuracy will
be the same in the other sample, so they 'wash out" so to speak). I
have also converted the numbers all to ppm, since this is what you
seem to be so stuck on. I usually use % as that is a little easier for
the average person to understand (for those of you that are curious
1ppm = .0001% or 1gram in a metric ton (1000kg, 2200pounds).

"SOILS" MODE:

NWA (5000)
Ba (160), Ca (143,087), Cl (4775), Co (553), Cr (544), Cu (52), Fe
(37,941), I (570), K (1512), Mn (476), Rb (3), S (1429), Sr (178), Ti
(1619), Zn (23), Zr (87)

YOUR "Pairing"
Ba (580), Ca (11,464), Cl (10,064), Cu (59), Fe (6853), K (23,422), Mn
(99), Pb (19), Rb (64), S (964), Sr (714), Ti (1469), Zn (44), Zr
(169)

A quick look at this tells me that you have way too little Ca, Cr (you
had NONE of this critically important element in all meteorites in
this sample!), Fe, and Mn. You also have way to high Ba, K, and Sr -- 
all features common to many terrestrial (that is EARTH rocks, if you
don't understand the lingo) materials.

"MINING" MODE: Note - LE is "light elements" This device cannot see
elements of atomic weight lighter than Mg. In rocks, this is usually O
(oxygen).

NWA (5000)
Al (154,940), Ca (131,430), Cd (200), Cr (850), Fe (45,800), LE
(334,220), Mg (43,300), Mn (890), Ni (50), Sb (320), Si (285,060), Sn
(220), Ti (2110), V (260), Zr (87)

YOUR "pairing"
Al (89,390), Ca (8270), Cd (194), Cr (190), Fe (13,570), LE (409,990),
Mn (290), P (600), Pb (13), S (500), Sb (300), Si (472, 980), Sn
(210), Ti (2780), V (500), Zr (218)

 A quick look at these numbers shows that your sample is to high in LE
(oxygen), Si and Zr. Your sample is to low in Al, Ca, Cr, and Fe.

The high Si linked with a high LE number tells me that you have a lot
of quartz in this rock and hints that it is indeed a rhyolite lava
breccia. These type lavas are VERY common to the San Juan Volcanic
field just south of you. Much of those mountains you see to your south
are the remnants of huge, explosive volcanoes. The high Si content
makes these lavas thick and sticky and the volcanoes they are
associated with particularly violent in their eruptions - hence the
breccia structure in your rock (though, admittedly, it could be from a
fault zone but it looks more typical Rhyolite breccia to me).

So Steve, you have lost!

I personally think that, since you demanded us all to quit and write
apology letters, you should be required to completely remove yourself
from the field of meteoritics, go back on the news channels, papers
and libraries and apologize to all of the poor young kids and adults
you misled in your media blitz peddling your fake rocks the last year
or so.

Another thing - REMOVE THIS FRAUDULANT LISTING FROM E-BAY NOW!

If you don't, I will take my data to "team E-Bay" and show them that
this is a fraud (anybody else out there that has better E-Bay
connections - feel free to contact them for me if the listing does not
go away in the next day or two).

I tried to "play nice" with you. All I ever did was to offer to
analyze material for you, but you decided that you had some kind of
axe to grind with me. Well, play time is over and I mean business!

Blaine Reed