[meteorite-list] Meteorite Black Market

[Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum]

>From the Boston Globe:

 "Writing at the website of the excellent BBC Radio program "The Naked 
Scientists," Audrey Tempelsman looks at the global trade in meteorites, and 
finds a shadowy, globe-spanning gray market." "Many meteorite resellers, 
Tempelsman writes, close their eyes to the legal aspects of the merchandise. 
As Ralph Harvey, a geologist at Case Western Reserve University, tells 
Tempelsman,"The skill level that some collectors have to get stones out of 
Africa rivals that of drug dealers."

"The black market for meteorites"

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/06/09/the-black-market-for-meteorites/poFPgK5REldREpXFylFH6I/story.html

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>From the BigThink Blog:
"The Meteorite Black Market"
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/the-meteorite-black-market


"We have at our disposal a very limited number of [meteorite and asteroid] 
specimens to study and exhibit," said Dr. Mario Di Martino, who led an 
exhibition team to investigate the Gebel Kamil meteorite site in Egypt in 
2009. Before his team's investigation could begin, however, the meteorites 
were found by someone else and later sold privately in France. "He and other 
members of the Gebel Kamil crater discovery team, he added, don't have the 
money to buy them on the flourishing black market." Some meteorite 
adventurers, however, turn to experts for analysis which cause some, 
including Carl B. Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the 
University of New Mexico, to argue the ambition of the private sector is 
once again aiding sluggish public research."

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>From the China Daily and Daily Astronomy:

"Scientists see red over black-market meteorite sales"

"A black market in meteorites"
By William J. Broad (New York Times)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-04/17/content_12338995.htm

Contains the infamous quote:

"It's a black market," said Ralph P. Harvey, a geologist who directs the 
United States search for meteorites in Antarctica. "It's as organized as any 
drug trade and just as illegal."

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>From KSL radio:

"Meteorites Can Totally Make You Rich"

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=895&sid=20208234

"Looking for a place where wealth literally falls out of the sky? Head to 
Rescue, California, where you can find meteorites which go for around $1,000 
per gram. According toThe Los Angeles Times' Diana Marcum,there's a 
different type of California "gold rush" going on, the result of a meteorite 
leaving the Coloma-Lotus Valley of California littered with meteor fragments 
fetching thousands of dollars on the meteor black market."

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There are many more articles that repeat and rehash the statements of Ralph 
Harvey and the articles of William Broad.

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Phil Whitmer
Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum