[meteorite-list] Some thoughts on find coords

[contact at meteorite-hunting.com]

Hi Marc, List,

First off, THANKS for all your efforts Marc. Publishing this data is a  
valuable resource to the meteorite community and the scientific  
meteoritics world at large.

"...is it really important to hide the find locations?..."

Only if there is a monetary or legal reason to do so.

I have long been a proponent of sharing meteorite find data.

However many hunters I have hunted with, some here on the Met List,  
and many of those I've met in the field do not like to share find  
coordinates for fear of losing meteorites to competition.  
Understandably so...

However it goes deeper than that. Much deeper.

Unscrupulous hunters who don't care about land owners, permissions, or  
other meteorite hunters are an extreme danger to the science of  
meteorite recovery.

The danger lies in the fact that some of these unscrupulous hunters  
trespass on land without gaining permission or even speaking with the  
land owner. This damages the trust and report that many hunters and  
scientists have worked very hard to cultivate. In some instances these  
trespasses have resulted in hunters losing access to important parts  
of meteorite strewnfields, and as such, meteorites were lost to  
science and the collectors market.

Some of these "UNPROFESSIONAL" hunters have been arrested, run off  
land, shot at, and this further damages the reputations of the  
"professional" responsible meteorite hunters and scientists who work  
together to build trust with locals and landowners.

An important distinction must be made between the professional hunter  
and the unprofessional hunter.

The professional meteorite hunter/scientist cares about the law, the  
landowners, the locals, and is considerate of other hunters.

The unprofessional hunter should not even be called a hunter and the  
word POACHER should be used to describe their actions. The poachers do  
not care about or respect the law, and they are a blight on the  
meteorite world.

This makes local people wary of all meteorite hunters regardless of  
their professionalism, especially when the media covers these stories  
without fact checking and getting all sides. Irresponsible media  
coverage is a bad thing for meteorite recovery.

Most hunters don't like to share find coordinates simply for fear of  
losing meteorites to other hunters. It's very expensive to travel  
halfway across the country on a meteorite recovery mission. Average  
expenses (before purchasing meteorites from locals) tends to be around  
$200 per day on average. This includes airfare/travel, fuel, hotel,  
rental car, food, drink, and entertainment.

Most people know how expensive it is to recover new fall meteorites in  
the field. Most times meteorites fall thousands of miles away. Which  
means airfare is MUCH more expansive because one must purchase a  
ticket with very little notice.

All this goes to the cost of meteorite recovery, and is a big reason  
why hunters don't want to share find data. It becomes a business  
decision. Some material gets donated for scientific study, and many  
hunters sell material to collectors to recoup some of the costs of the  
hunt, and hopefully can turn a profit as well. This profit can be used  
to hunt and hopefully recover more future meteorite falls.

There is a middle ground here. One can be a professional hunter, gain  
and keep the respect and trust of the landowners and other meteorite  
recovery teams.

Sharing meteorite find coordinates works! It allows more meteorites to  
be recovered. Period.

Sharing meteorite find coordinates creates more accurate data for  
scientists and hunters alike. This data is then used to find more  
meteorites. It's how it works.

NOT Sharing find coordinates, I would argue does more harm (to the  
completeness of the strewnfield data) than good, because strewnfield  
data is NOT wholly accurate, and LESS meteorite material is recovered  
as a result.

I witnessed this in small part in West Texas, and much more so in  
Mifflin, WI. Those of us who shared our find coordinates with one  
another went on to find more meteorites. Those that did not have  
access to this data did not find as many or any meteorites.

Our team kept the meteorite find coordinates a tightly guarded secret  
within our little clique, and that I think was NOT to the benefit of  
the whole of the strewnfield or other hunters.

Some hunters might get upset with me here for saying this. The  
reasoning behind keeping find data secret was out of respect for  
others on our team. We had an agreement that we would share only with  
our team. Even though I am for sharing find coordinates, I had to  
honor the agreement while in the field. Later, after everything was  
said and done, I was given permission by all those on our team to  
release and share with the rest of the meteorite community that  
strewnfield map I had compiled. As such, many more hunters also shared  
their data with me, and we published their find data on the map as  
well, creating the most detailed strewnfield map to date of the  
Mifflin Strewnfield. This helped more people recover meteorites as  
well and gave a detailed view of the entire strewnfield.

Back to the hunt... My opinion is that because we shared this data  
within our group, more people in our group found meteorites. It's  
simple logic.

Even with RADAR it was still VERY difficult to recover stones. RADAR  
is not the end all be all in meteorite hunting. It's just ONE tool in  
the meteorite recovery toolbox. Find coordinate only verify RADAR and  
RADAR does NOT always mark the actual place where meteorites are  
found. Upper level winds can blow smaller stones way out from under  
the RADAR returns on the map. Both Ash Creek and Mifflin proves this  
to be the case.

I argue that BECAUSE we all shared our find data with one another, we  
all (most of us) recovered more meteorites as a direct result. The  
same can be said with sharing with locals.

When everyone holds their cards close the the vest so to speak, data  
is cloudy at best, information is hard to come by, and meteorite  
recovery becomes a guessing game.

Sharing meteorite find data works. More data means more accurate  
projection of the meteorite strewnfield. The more accurate the data  
one has, the more meteorites are recovered as a result of that data.

That has been proven time and again. Yet some people would still argue  
that more data does not mean that one will automatically find more  
meteorites. While that is partly true, it's incomplete. The reason  
more data doesn't always mean more meteorites will be recovered is  
simply because most of the "recoverable" meteorites may have already  
been recovered. A recoverable meteorite is one that is on land which  
one has access to. If a meteorite fell in the water, or on land that  
is either covered in thick vegetation or where the landowner has  
refused entry to meteorite hunters, then meteorites will likely  not  
be recovered in that area unless the landowner finds them.

The more information that is available the better. More data equals  
more meteorites recovered. "Riff Raff" will still be around regardless  
of published data or not.

Most times, speed of meteorite recovery is vital. Weather and or  
planting and harvesting plays a major role in how much meteorite  
material can be recovered from any given fall before they are buried  
or destroyed and lost forever to science and collectors.

I have always supported the publishing of find coordinates, and kudos  
to everyone who has shared with others. This helps the meteorite  
hunter, collector, and the scientific community at large. We're all  
better off because of shared data.

It might, at first glance seem counter-intuitive to publish data, but  
without more accurate data, we wouldn't be able to recover as many  
meteorites. Period.

Thank you Marc, and all the other scientists and hunters who see the  
true value in publishing find data so more meteorites can be recovered.

Regards,
Eric Wichman



Quoting Marc Fries <chief_scientist at galacticanalytics.com>:

> Greetings all
>
> 	I've been talking with a few people about logging the Battle   
> Mountain meteorites, and I'd like to start some discussion on the   
> topic of find coordinates. This is NOT directed at any one person,   
> but I would like to editorialize a bit. I'm getting a lot of   
> push-back about printing find coordinates and I'd like to open the   
> topic to general discussion.
>
> 	Historically, the locations of found meteorites have been a closely  
>  guarded secret. That made a lot of sense when meteorite hunting   
> relied most heavily on eyewitness reports. A hunter could easily put  
>  in many, many miles of walking before coming across a meteorite.  
> For  finds that are made with weather radar, however, I don't think  
> its  the same situation. When I post radar analyses, it is like  
> posting a  treasure map that says, "Go Here".  At that point  
> everyone knows  where the meteorites are, and it seems to me that  
> the locations of  individual stones aren't nearly as important as  
> they were in the  past. (Strewn fields without detailed radar data  
> are another matter,  of course.) Where those locations do matter are  
> to A) the science  behind describing the meteorite fall, and B) the  
> value of the  individual meteorite since a well-documented meteorite  
> should be  worth more than a random stone from a given fall.
>
> 	I am a scientist, and my first instinct is to collect, analyze, and  
>  -share- data. I understand where that is at odds with the level of   
> secrecy needed in the past, but I think that that level of secrecy   
> is no longer needed and actually works contrary to the value of   
> meteorites, both monetary and scientific. On the Galactic Analytics   
> website, I'm willing to go against my better instincts and hide find  
>  locations, at least until a scientific paper is released describing  
>  the fall. But to be honest, I think that's a little silly - I'll   
> basically have a table showing meteorites with the find locations   
> redacted, and then you can scroll down the page a bit and see a map   
> showing where the meteorites are.
>
> 	So let me throw this out there as a general question - is it really  
>  important to hide the find locations?
>
> Cheers,
> Marc Fries
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