[meteorite-list] South Pole Meteorite - ALH761 a.k.a. ALHA76001

From: Mike Jensen <meteoriteplaya_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:00:31 -0600
Message-ID: <6f9da8300810161600j2426d853y4e38f6710ced11e_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Jeff and list
 you wrote
"Some of these pieces "went missing" after they were
> brought back from the field."

According to Cassidy "Meteorites, Ice and Antarctica A personal Account"

p 36-37

In Jan 18, 1977 they recovered 34 fragments with a total weight of 407
kg of ALHA76001.

"With the resounding success of our first field season, it became easy
to justify further work. But success can breed problems, and we had
our share. Word spread through the small community at McMurdo, and
when we had packed our specimen boxes, nailed them shut, addressed
them and strapped them for shipment, they were easy to identify as
ours. And anyone could know they contained meteorites. Who would not
want this kind of souvenir from Antarctica? So it was that after we
had left for home someone broke into one of the Japanese boxes and
removed a number of pieces of the 407 kg meteorite. These apparently
were distributed into several willing hands..."
"Months later, a principal investigator saw a meteorite fragment on
his assistant's shelf. The assistant readily admitted it was an
antarctic meteorite and claimed to have walked in on the looting of
the box by several people he did not know. This is the only one of the
missing fragments we have ever recovered."

-- 
Mike
Mike Jensen Meteorites
16730 E Ada PL
Aurora, CO 80017-3137
USA
720-949-6220
IMCA 4264
website: www.jensenmeteorites.com
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:19 AM, Jeff Grossman <jgrossman at usgs.gov> wrote:
> I've been told another scientist that there is a better candidate that this
> could be.  ALHA76009 was a huge find with many pieces.  The stones had nice
> black fusion crust.  Some of these pieces "went missing" after they were
> brought back from the field.  It too is L6.  I tried to see how we know that
> the ebay stone was H, but the listing is gone.
>
> jeff
>
> bernd.pauli at paulinet.de wrote:
>>
>> Mike wrote:
>>
>> "Or... it is a clever scam, designed to fool us Antarctic research
>> wannabes."
>>
>> Something else that makes it a "suspicious" offer: ALHA76001 clearly is
>> an L6 chondrite whereas the one on EBay was offered as an H chondrite!
>>
>> A typo? Maybe ...
>>
>> Best from
>>
>> "Doubting Bernd"
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Jeffrey N. Grossman       phone: (703) 648-6184
> US Geological Survey          fax:   (703) 648-6383
> 954 National Center
> Reston, VA 20192, USA
>
>
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Received on Thu 16 Oct 2008 07:00:31 PM PDT