[meteorite-list] How Many Lunar Meteorites?

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:13:20 -0500
Message-ID: <C2436A43B25E44D0BAFC766D89ED9E95_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Hi,

The land area of the U.S.A. (true dry land, excluding
portions of the Great Lakes and other waters within
the boundaries of the nation) constitutes 1.8% of the
total area of the planet and 6.25% of the land area
of the planet.

If you will grant that few meteorites are recovered at
sea, that means that, given a random distribution,
6.25% of all Lunar meteorites SHOULD be found in
the U.S.A., all other factors being equal. If that were
true (it's not, I guess) four of the 68 Lunars would
be of American origin.

Therefore, the level of hunting scrutiny is not high
enough in the U.S. to catch them. The known Lunars
are from hunting environments that favor high
recovery rates (Oman, Sahara, NWA obviously).

Rob Matson's suggestions about potential future
finders are additionally perspicacious because those
hunters hunt similar environments to those where
Lunars have been found, with long accumulation
times of stones and where a stone sticks out and
gets your attention.

There is always the chance an inconspicuous Lunar
has been found but not identified. If you're looking
for a location that might contain such a rare type,
your best chances are in an area where stones of
the greatest terrestrial exposure age have been
found in the past.


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Meteorites USA" <eric at meteoritesusa.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] How Many Lunar Meteorites?


>I also noticed, there are no Lunar meteorites recovered in the USA.
>Yet...
>
> Does this still hold true?
>
> Eric
>
>
> On 8/23/2010 11:53 AM, Randy Korotev wrote:
>> Dear Eric:
>>
>> My alphanumeric list contains 140 named stones,
>>
>> http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites_list_alpha.htm
>>
>> with the caveat that some do not actually have official names yet
>> (e.g., "Unnamed 12"). They're on the list because I've analyzed them
>> and know them to be lunar. That's the main reason that my number,
>> 140, is larger than the MetBull number, 130. It's my hope that all
>> the unnamed get official names someday.
>>
>> "Does this mean there are 130 Lunar meteorites that have been
>> recovered and classified, Ever?" Stones, yes; meteorites, no.
>>
>> My composition-ordered list has only 68 meteorites because of known
>> or strongly-suspected pairings.
>>
>> http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites_list_alumina.htm
>>
>> Norbert Classen keeps close tabs on this and has 67 on his list (he
>> and I both know about one that is on my list but may not be on his
>> list yet):
>>
>> http://www.meteoris.de/luna/list.html
>>
>> So, ~68 is the total number of known lunar meteorites. That
>> information is not easily available from the MetBull database. It
>> sometimes takes years to establish that different named stones are or
>> are not paired.
>>
>> A confusion for your calculations is that practically every
>> individual lunar and martian meteorite stone gets it's own name and
>> line-item in the MetBull database whereas all Allende stones have one
>> name.
>>
>> Randy
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 12:40 PM 8/23/2010 Monday, you wrote:
>>> Hi List,
>>>
>>> I know this has been talked about on-list but... I keep getting this
>>> question, or people that say they have found a "Lunar" meteorite.
>>> I'm wondering how many there actually are. I've heard numbers thrown
>>> about haphazardly, but no one has been able to give me a clear and
>>> concise answer.
>>>
>>> The Met-Bull has "...130 records found for meteorites with
>>> historical types that contain "Lunar"...'
>>>
>>> Does this mean there are 130 Lunar meteorites that have been
>>> recovered and classified, Ever? Or is my search flawed? (as a side
>>> note, it also says there are "...92 records found for meteorites
>>> with historical types that contain "Martian"...")
>>>
>>> Dr. Randy Korotev's "List of Lunar Meteorites" on the Washinton
>>> University website has the number at 140.
>>> http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites_list_alpha.htm
>>>
>>> Just for giggles I wanted to know how many total classified
>>> meteorites there actually were on the planet.
>>>
>>> "...39146 valid meteorite names; 11959 provisional names; 4589
>>> full-text writeups..."
>>>
>>> That's a whopping 51,105 classifications. Wow!
>>>
>>> Doing some simple math, 130 Lunar meteorites out of 51,105 total
>>> classifications means that "Lunars" only makeup about 0.254% of the
>>> total number of meteorite ever classified. (0.180% for Martian
>>> meteorites).
>>>
>>> Are these number correct?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Eric
>>>
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>>
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Received on Mon 23 Aug 2010 08:13:20 PM PDT