AW: [meteorite-list] In medias res: Morocco Meteorite Meeting

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jun 30 07:48:18 2006
Message-ID: <004b01c69c3b$0d95c340$4f41fea9_at_name86d88d87e2>

Ooops,

so silent - although it's by far the most important topic of the last years
for collectors and dealers likewise...

Sume points, to get the discussion moving:

In fact whether the trade and the hunt of meteorites are restricted or not
is nothing else than a political decision.
Politicians decide according to recommendations they obtain, as their
legislating is of administrative character and in general it is impossible
for them to be experts in the topics they have to decide about.
Thus such an international meeting can make an impact.
And here I see cause for concern, because I fear, that the argumentation
there naturally is biased,
as in past never the groups, which are the protagonists of that mechanism of
the NWA-trade, were incorporated in the discourse, as there are the US- and
European retail dealers, the Moroccan brokers, the foreign professional
hunters and the nameless finders of desert countries, who deliver their
stones to the market in Morocco.
Aside animosities between the groups of different interests and backgrounds,
I guess, not to ask them was a lapse, cause who could have a better insight
into the situation of the NWA field, than those, whose daily work it is to
handle that stuff.
We all saw to what for distortion of the facts that lopsided view has led.

"On the other hand, many meteorites are marketed wholesale at low prices"

I'm soooo thankful for that sentence!
Because the overestimation of the monetary value (or market prices) as well
as the volume of the desert finds, was hardly bearable anymore.

Thank you Michel Franco, that you remind me, that Algerian police, customs
and gendarmerie was instructed about meteorites by Algerian university
professors.
Here from the newspaper article - which P?l? translated for us - what they
were actually told then last year:

"...Ouargla. This phenomenon is obviously far from being a fact various
since only one gram of a meteorite costs between 10 000 and 20 000 dollars,
according to precise details' of the gendarmerie.
Better still, the gram of a meteorite of the type
"chassignite" culminates with... 70 000 US dollars. It is thus permissible
to imagine the amazing sums garnered by these plundering tourists on the
back of the Algerians. And the foreign laboratories of research in geology,
astronomy and geophysics, inter alia, are particularly fond of delicacies
for these small objects which are worth gold because of their scientific
value. And they are ready to put the full price to obtain them"

Well, last year, as still today, you can buy those Algerian meteorites in
retail in the western and northern world everywhere at 0.05-0.10/g, would
have to look, but that desert Chassignite (one single small stone out of
thousands desert finds of the recent 20 years) is sold at 3500$/g - 4500$/g.

I never heard, that ever an institute or a private person paid 70.000$/g for
a meteorite (with the only exception of the first crumbs of Calcalong Creek
in the 90ies) and by my best will, there exists and existed since 6 years,
hence during all the time of the NWA-rush only one stone, Chassigny itself,
which could be paid with 10.000-20.000$/g.
So if I am mild and won't accuse those Algerian luminaries of a purposeful
lie, I have to say, that they obviously have no notion at all of the complex
they bemoan, nor about the Algerian stones, which they try to protect,
a factor certainly highly problematic in that respect, that those professors
should preserve, curate and scientifically work on that stones in Algeria in
future.

Another circumstance is, that to the most involved parties in that
discussion the true dimensions of the volume of the desert finds might be
not clear, whereas such estimations of course are an uncertain task,
but if we recall Grossmann's compilation from the Bulletin database,
containing all classified and filed meteorites until the end of last year,
hence also ALL non-desert finds, the HUGE volume of the Antarctic finds, the
falls and finally all NWAs and Omanis, (while with the latter we haven't the
problem with the bad documentation and unreported cases, as their we haven't
structures like in Sahara and the meteorites can't be bought there, but must
be found) and when we additionally keep in mind, that predominantly the
rarer and rarest types from Sahara are and will be classified, because else
one can't sell them at adequate prices and in fact with OCs there is no
money to make those years, and thus it's of vital interest for the dealers,
to get them published and numbered,
and if we show to ourselves plainly that from all meteorites 90% of the
weight are contributed by the irons and stony-irons,
and because there aren't almost no irons found in Sahara and Oman,
than we can presume, that the dark figure of unreported or yet unreported
material is not unmanageably huge.
Here again the figures for ALL known meteorites:

Meteorites total: 581 tons.

Ordinary Chondrites: 52 tons

Carbonaceous Chondrites: 3 tons (bonjour Allende with 2 tons).

Howardites, Diogenites, Eucrites: 1 ton
 
Aubrites: 1 ton (vulgo Norton County).


Well and that's very discomfiting, if at such a conference also savants are
discussing that issue, who have unfounded imaginations about the figures and
will listen to some, who obviously have no idea at all about find volumes,
prices ect - we really can only hope, that they will listen also to those
scientists, which present the summaries of their own hunting campaigns!

Cause take the worst case - if those Algerians arrange a estimated amount of
some 10,000 tons or even only 1000 tons of meteorites dealt in Sahara at a
price of 20.000$ a gram,
and not, if we bountiful presume a dozen (or for Bill 20 tons) of ordinary
chondrites at 50.000$ value by the ton, 2-4 tons of rarer types at a few
bucks per gram and a few single kgs superrare exots at 20$-2000$/g,
then the debate about the commercial exploiting of meteorites and the value
of a patrimony will get a direction, which will lead not only to a complete
restriction but to a hefty criminalization of all involved.

Ooops, was only one point, perhaps some more soon - but football's coming
home!! Today Koser vs. Karl!!

Buckelboo
Received on Fri 30 Jun 2006 07:48:06 AM PDT