[meteorite-list] Oum Rokba

[Robert Verish]

A question to anyone who has hunted meteorites in Morocco:

Other than a Berber tribesman, has any meteorite dealer/hunter ever found an Oum Rokba stone, I mean, really picked-up from the ground in the actual strewn-field one of the "several hundred" distinctive-looking, chondritic stones that were originally recovered 12 years ago?  

I wrote an article back in Dec. 2008 about the Oum Rokba (H5) meteorites,  and I repeated the oft-quoted story about "stones being found by a Berber native a few kilometers from an Oasis named Oum Rokba."  Since then, I've been asked by several people if I had any direct evidence of that recovery and of its location, in order to make that statement.  

The actual phrase that I remember being asked was, "Don't you think that it is strange that a strewn-field the size of Oum Rokba (many hundreds of stones), that it's actual location wouldn't be better known?  Even a couple square kilometers around the Oum Rokba "oasis" isn't that large that it would forever hide that large of a strewn-field, and by now, someone else must have discovered it's location."

Those questions posed to me were implying that, given the benefit any "name" would give to the marketing of a meteorite, it should be considered as too convenient, and that in order to accept the location of this strewn-field it would require corroborating evidence from an independent source/hunter.  Also, that this notion would probably be met with resistance, because preserving the mythology would be considered more important than confirming the topography.  

Personally, all I need is to have just one guy stand-up and say, "Yeah, I found one of those stones there."

Bob V.