[meteorite-list] Re: Boorish Comments on A Tektite Web Page

From: kaolinite_at_ctc.net <kaolinite_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:31:14 2004
Message-ID: <1082266394-kaolinite-1.smmsdV2.0.3_at_localhost>

Bostock wrote:

"In the case of the Escoria impactite, from
which you comment on. This material is
collected at the edge of a shore. How long
do you think it would take this very light
and fragile material to be torn up and
destroyed by the incoming tide?"

Given my experience with commercial collectors, you
have a very naive and limited understanding of how
commercial collecting often will impact any
collecting locality. If the collecting of material
remained limited to only the material being exposed,
eroded, and concentrated along the shore, you would
have a very valid point. However, commercial
collecting typically will go beyond this stage
with time.

Unfortunately, if a material proves popular enough
and sells for enough money, the people earning a
living from providing the material rarely remain
satisfied with collecting only the material the
naturally accumulates "along the shore". Eventually,
someone gets the bright idea that they can expand
the amount of material that they produce by actually
mining the material. For example, at Little Stave
creek, people were content to collect the large
shark's teeth that naturally washed out of bank of
the creek. However, once someone found the layer,
from which the shark's teeth came, commercial
collectors started increasing the amount of teeth
they had to sell by mining that layer. Eventually,
they dug the layer back where it caused the bank to
collapse and dangerous overhangs that could collapse
on other people. As a result, the landowners closed
this world famous collecting location to amateurs,
commercial dealers, and scientists. Thus, for over
a couple decades an important paleontological site
has been off limits to everyone.

Little Stave Creek isn't an isolated example of what
can happen with commercialization of specific
collecting localities. Although a friend of mine is
still looking into it, part of the reason that the
area containing Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) was closed
appears to have been because people collecting LDG
for resale were looting archaeological sites within
that area of artifacts made from LDG. Because of the
collection of LDG for commercial purposes was also
destroying the cultural resources and robbing the
Egyptians of their prehistory, authorities have
nothing to do but retrict access to that area.

To get an idea of the physical damage that unrestricted
collecting can to an area, a person can look at Shark's
Tooth Hill near Bakersfield, CA and the trilobite strip
mines that can be found in the Ant-Atlas and Taurus
Mountains of Morroco. Also, In Russia, commercial
collecting of trilobite and ammonites have damaged,
often destroyed, many scientifically important
localities. At Meridian, Mississippi, people digging
for shark's teeth have mined several feet into the
outcrop beneath a layer of merged concretions. The
fact of the matter is that commercial collecting,
typically isn't satisfied with simply collecting
material found "at the edge of a shore". In order to
collect commercial quantities of materials, eventually,
either the collector, or his suppliers engage in
intensive and damaging mining activities at a locality.

If you look at these examples, it doesn't take a
rocket scientist to realize that unregulated
commercial collecting of the Escoria impactite
could eventually involved mining of the cliffs that
would in time destroy both the scientific and, even,
amateur collecting potential of these outcrops. Unlike
meteorites, where the supply is continuous, dispresed,
and far more abundant, large-scale collecting of this
material could have very serious impacts. You need to
understand that, from hard experience, amateur
collectors like me and research scientists, have
learned that nothing good rarely results by helping
commercial collectors. (Collecting meteorites,
which fall from the sky, and aren't collected by
mining, are an exception to this rule.)

One example of what might be in store for the Escoria
impactite lcality, a person can read:

Trilobite Fossil Crisis - Dalian Villagers Selling Off Fossils
Central News Agency, Translated by The Epoch Time, April 9, 2004
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/4-4-9/20779.html

"If Universities and Museum refuse to share
information to a collector, it would make it
hard for the same collector to share finds,
information or give donations. Something
that would benefit nobody."

The problem here is not a refusal to share information.
This information has already been shared in the
numerous papers, which the researcher has published
and is readily available in the scientific literature.
What the researcher, in question refused to do is
take time out to do the job of a private copy editor
for a commercial web page. Basically, a researcher
is being paid to do research and teach people. He is
not being paid to copy edit advertising for a
commercial establishment primarily aimed to sell
items for profit. Thus, the researcher didn't refuse
to share information for educational purposes, he
refused to waste valuable time and taxpayer money
copy editing a web page, whose prime objective
was not to teach people, but to mainly to advertise
a product for sale. For refusing to waste taxpayer
money for purely commercial purposes, the author
of the web page insulted him with childish
invective in the "footnote" on that web page at

http://tektitesource.com/Argentine%20Escoria.html .

The footnote on that web stated:

"He apparently does not believe that anyone
outside the Ivory Towers has a right to
possess specimens of this material and
expresses sadness that I am making this
available to you."

Having briefly met the researcher being discussed here
at a poster session at a Geological Society of America
(GSA) Meeting, (I am a commercial sand, gravel, and
environmental consulting geologist, not an academic), I
can also say that the author of this above sentence is
utterly ignorant of what the researchers being written
above believes. He doesn't have any problems with
amateurs collecting and possessing their own Escoria
impactite. What saddens him, like me, is that typically
in their desire to collect commercial quantities of
material from a single location, commercial collectors
often use techniques that destroy its usefulness for
anybody else, whether it be researchers, amateurs, or
even other commercial collectors. Here, the sadness
is contemplating the possibility that a very valuable
collecting location might be destroyed by commercial
collecting.

Yours,

Kieth
St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana
Received on Sun 18 Apr 2004 01:33:14 AM PDT