[meteorite-list] differing viewpoints - scientists, dealers, collectors

From: Randy Korotev <korotev_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Aug 15 10:40:22 2006
Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.0.20060814110725.043c4018_at_levee.wustl.edu>

Some comments from a new-comer to the list...

I am a scientist who studies lunar meteorites and have as much right
as anyone to be regarded as an expert in the field of lunar
geochemistry. Nevertheless, in the past 2 years I have made formal
sample requests to 3 different museums holding the type specimens of
certain lunar meteorites, all Dhofars, and have been either denied or
ignored. In this sense, the "system" doesn't always
work. Meanwhile, samples of some of the the very meteorites I want
were being sold on ebay for affordable prices. I work for one of the
best endowed private universities in the US. Nevertheless, there is
no mechanism for either my department or the university to buy me
samples for my research. From the university's point of view, if my
science is worth doing, then I should write a proposal to NASA or
NSF, my peers should find it worthy of funding, and all expenses for
my research should be paid by the research grant. Universities don't
fund research, they teach students. (Think about it: If you were
paying $50k/year to send your kid to this university, would you want
some of that money going to buy meteorites for guys like
me?) Government agencies fund research, and getting those dollars is
fiercely competitive (as it should be). From the point of view of
NASA and NSF, however, all or most hot-desert meteorites are stolen
property, so I can't budget the cost of Dhofar meteorite purchases
into my proposal. Through some creative financing, I have been able
over the last year to purchase some of meteorites that I need. There
are several Dhofars, however, that I want but for which I can't find
a source that I can afford and can't get for free from the museums
holding the type specimens.

A frustration is that my main interest is the geochemistry of the
Moon. The lunar meteorites, as samples from random locations, in
conjunction with recent orbiting missions Clementine and Lunar
Prospector, have seriously changed our view of the Moon. So to me,
the lunar meteorites are an important research tool. Many of the
hot-desert lunar meteorites have been first characterized by
scientists with knowledge of meteorites but no special knowledge or
interest in the Moon. Consequently, these scientists don't ask the
questions I ask, and many of the initial descriptions have been
erroneous or misleading, from the point of view of persons with
experience in the Apollo collection. So, although it may seem to the
outsider that any lunar meteorite described in the Meteoritical
Bulletin, for example, has been "studied by scientists," for many of
the lunar meteorites (at least) the scientific information they carry
about the Moon has not really been extracted.

I know many scientists who would love to go meteorite hunting. The
waiting list of volunteers for ANSMET is very long. The issue is not
desire among scientists, but who's going to pay the bills. No U.S.
government agency is going to fund meteorite collection efforts in
northern Africa or Oman. The benefit/cost ratio would be regarded
(right or wrong) as much too low compared, say, to field work in the
same areas by geophysicists or paleoanthropologists. Read Bill
Cassidy's "Meteorites, Ice, and Antarctica" to see how much trouble
he had in the 1970's getting NSF to fund the ANSMET project. And
that was a really good idea.


~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
Randy L. Korotev phone: (314) 935-5637
Research Associate Professor fax: (314) 935-7361
Washington University in Saint Louis korotev_at_wustl.edu
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences http://epsc.wustl.edu/

erything you need to know about lunar meteorites:
http://epsc.wustl.edu/admin/resources/moon_meteorites.html
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