[meteorite-list] It is a sad day.....

From: Jason Utas <meteoritekid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:16:55 -0800
Message-ID: <93aaac891003091116q4c7006f0g58230a923b009acc_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hello Shawn, All,

>I have read in the last couple posts you stating "I have never sold or traded a find away, and never will" Is there a reason for this?

First and foremost, I love meteorites. While I might consider trading
a specimen for another, or selling one to raise money, again for
another meteorite, there are some specimens that I simply would never
consider trading or selling because they're...irreplaceable.
It doesn't matter what the find is - I could never buy a meteorite
with that sort of sentimental value, so I simply have no reason to
sell it.
After all, what could I get for the 10g main mass of a California
meteorite? $300? $500? $1,000?
It doesn't matter. I couldn't get a better meteorite (in my eyes) for
the money, so while it may just be a weathered L6, it represents a
day's or a week's hard work, and the memories that go along with it.
That's worth more than any reasonable offer in my book.

>I am assuming you have donated some of your finds to institutions for analyzing or for display for public viewing?

We donated 1/3 of the Acapulcoite that we found to UCLA - they
unfortunately didn't think that the stone was a meteorite and used the
entire portion to make a single thin section. Beyond that, we're
slowly submitting our finds (20+grams or 20+%) for analysis, but we've
been letting off on that recently, settling for provisional numbers.
Most of our finds are clearly weathered, equilibrated, ordinary
chondrites. There's just no reason to analyze two hundred ordinary
chondrites.

We offered all of our specimens (finds and purchases) to Griffith
Observatory for their display; they wound up using only one of our
in-matrix specimens for their display:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cameteoritefinder/4047882229/sizes/l/


We've since offered a number of other specimens, including the following stone:

http://picasaweb.google.com/MeteoriteKid/PersonalFinds#5419016704463133490

http://picasaweb.google.com/MeteoriteKid/PersonalFinds#5419016712172640738

But they've never taken anything else since. We've considered going
to the LANHM, but they've displayed such little interest in meteorites
in the past that we haven't really pursued working with them to any
degree.

>Also, you have stated that you keep detailed records of your finds and backed up on two different computers and on paper as well. From this it seems that your very passionate about meteorites not to mention you believe in keeping meteorites whole. Now how do you feel about sharing your coordinates with the public at large of where you have located your finds?

Haha, good question. We love hunting for them, and we put a lot of
work into exploring new areas and finding new places to hunt.
We generally keep such things to ourselves; we typically hunt alone,
and while we generally don't share find information with people (few
people share any with us), we have cooperated with other hunters at
Coyote Dry Lake and Superior Dry Lake. We also have a few locations
where we've found stones that we'd like to keep under wraps as we keep
exploring them. This generally has to do with our method of hunting
in those areas; we grid lakebeds using piles of stones, mapping the
grids to keep track of where we've hunted. On such lakebeds, we've
spent years painstakingly walking each square (ranging from ~100-300
ft across, depending on the terrain) using cones as guides.
Doing so, we've been able to find scores of meteorites under a gram in
weight in "empty" areas of lakebeds, and on one lakebed, managed to
find a 99 gram stone -- and the single chip that broke off of it that
weighed less than two grams, over half a mile away, to say nothing of
miraculous puzzles from a few other lakebeds.

The trouble with sharing such locations can be easily seen what
happened at Coyote Dry Lake.
We didn't discover that strewnfield, but we did make a few exploratory
trips there in the early 2000's, before any stones were actually
published. So, we arrived late, stumbled across a fragment on our
own, and were subsequently informed that hundreds of stones had been
found there (we weren't given any coordinates or other information at
the time). We gridded some of the rockier areas, and were dismayed to
find that, while we did find some large-ish stones, we spent a
cumulative total of *months* there finding small fragments, because
nearly all of the larger stones had been picked up by hunters who had
driven and randomly walked the lake, finding many of the larger stones
- but few of the small ones. We found less (by weight) in our six or
seven years spent focused on that lakebed than the Gesslers found in
one of their early days there.
But we did find over a hundred and fifty stones, representing *at
least* seven distinct falls, on a lakebed that was supposedly "pretty
hunted out."

It's because we cover areas slowly, but thoroughly. If we told people
where we hunted, they'd come, find much of the larger stuff and some
of the smaller stuff, and they'd be gone, leaving us to pick up the
bits and pieces.
I'm not too excited for that.

That said, it's no secret as to where we found Superior Valley 014,
and I've been more than willing to share our Ash Creek information
with anyone who wanted it (only one person, oddly enough). Other
finds...as they get published and become official, that information
will become public.

It's the sole reason why I agree with Jack Shrader and team's
withholding information about Whetstone Mountains. They're doing a
good job of mapping the field on their own, and were they to make it
public, all hell would break loose.
It will.
So, while I may not particularly enjoy the fact that they're not
sharing information, I do at least see where they're coming from.
They put in the work, tracked it down, and found the damn thing. If
anyone else wanted to do the same, they could, with some luck. But
with regards to that information...it's his to share. It belongs to
him.

The way I see it, getting information like that even from a friend is
a privilege; it represents the fruit of days of planning, hours of
driving, and days of work harder than what most people have to do to
make a living. Other people aren't "entitled" to it, but if the
finder chooses to share it with someone, that's his or her call.

We've shared some of our information with friends who we know are
hunters who respect common etiquette, laws, and the environment. It's
hearing about people who fill their find-holes in Glorietta with
metallic trash, hunters who follow others around to find where they're
hunting, folks disrespecting wilderness laws and making ATV roads
through forests...and crap like that that just makes me realize that
sharing information with too many people really wouldn't be a good
idea. Even driving is prohibited in some of the places we've been
to...and I'd like to keep it that way.
Too much crap goes on behind the scenes...if you're new at this,
you'll figure that out soon enough.

With regards to Martin's statement:
"meteorite hunting/collecting in USA and the rest of the World is NOT
a mass phenomenon
like gold prospecting, mineral and fossils collecting or artefacts hunting.
Meteorites are by number simply to rare and to difficult to find - 50
classified finds in the best years in USA, tells that.
Nor does the monetary/economical "value" of these meteorites play any role
and is negligible compared to the other hunting fields of artefacts, fossils
ect.
Therefore meteorite hunting in the U.S. never will be a mass phenomenon."

I disagree. Far fewer remotely complete dinosaur fossils were being
found annually back in that heyday than fifty per year; we're finding
more meteorites than they found dinosaurs at that time. It's true
that meteorites are rare, but the reason why so few are found is that
so few people are looking with any regularity. Plenty of people go
looking for fossils, but so few look for meteorites in the US that the
numbers stay relatively low. That's also helped by the fact that most
meteorites look like pretty normal rocks. Your average fossil looks
like a bone, a tooth, something recognizable; I even found some
dinosaur fossils while hunting at Ash Creek. They're there, in
find-able numbers. It will just take more people with trained eyes to
see them.

Regards,
Jason

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:10 AM, Shawn Alan <photophlow at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Jason and all,
>
>
> Jason I would like to ask you some questions. I have read in the last couple posts you stating "I have never sold or traded a find away, and never will" Is there a reason for this? I am assuming you have donated some of your finds to institutions for?analyzing or for display for public viewing? Also, you have stated that you keep detailed records of your finds and backed up on two different computers and on paper as well. From this it seems that your very passionate about meteorites not to mention you believe in keeping meteorites whole. Now how do you feel about sharing your coordinates with the public at large of where you have located your finds?
>
>
>
> Shawn Alan
>
>
>
> [meteorite-list] It is a sad day.....
> Jason Utas meteoritekid at gmail.com
> Tue Mar 9 02:31:47 EST 2010
>
> Previous message: [meteorite-list] It is a sad day.....
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>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Greg, All,
>
>
>> These laws that restrict what can be taken off of BLM land, etc.....where do they come from? Where do these laws come from? Who creates these laws?
>
>
> What's your point? This wasn't addressed in your email or my reply,
> so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
> We are, of course, talking about the government, but if you're going
> to choose this as your example of an unnecessary or "wrong" law,
> perhaps you should challenge the laws that prohibit the collection of
> vertebrate fossils or indian remains by amateurs, as well. They
> amount to the same thing - but are more readily enforced.
>
>
>> Also, I'd like to address the following in your recent post. Speaking of meteorites, you wrote, "....it wouldn't stop anyone from hunting for them; it's easy enough to say that you're looking for *anything* else...and if they ask you what the brown rock that you've found is, do you really expect the BLM officer to know what a meteorite looks like?
>
>>
>
>> In other words, *break the law*. Is that about right? Whatever works, huh.
>
>
> Hardly. Have you ever jay-walked? Did you ever have a sip of beer
> before turning 21 (or 18, depending on the era).
> I know that we do a better job of documenting our finds than most
> people out there, and a trained scientist probably wouldn't do better
> -- at least, I don't see what else they could do in terms of
> documenting a find.
> The thing is -- I understand why those laws are in place, and while I
> suppose we may technically be breaking them, if they are indeed
> official laws, the simple fact of the matter is this: I have never
> sold or traded a find away, and never will. I have also fully
> documented every find - coordinates, labels, we have trip logs for
> each trip, in situ photos without gps, with gps, all photos
> laboriously annotated by Peter, and the records are on two computers,
> backed up on my external hard-drive, and are in paper form as well.
> When I die, unless I have children and they love these things as much
> as I do, our collection will likely go to the Smithsonian, with
> certain provisions that none of the samples be cut beyond 10% or some
> such thing.
> That or some other institution.
>
> I understand why laws against the collecting of vertebrate fossils are
> in place, and I wouldn't try to excavate any were I to come across
> them, for fear of damaging them and losing valuable scientific
> information.
> But I know damn well how to document meteorites, and we do a good job
> of it - as well as can be done.
>
> So when you tell me that I'm breaking a law...kind of, I suppose. I
> have never sold or traded a find, and never will. They will all wind
> up in an institution. They are all very well documented, and, to be
> frank, given the level of documentation that we have, it would be very
> hard to confuse a single one of our finds with another.
> So while you may claim that I may be *technically* breaking the law in
> taking them, but I'll be damned if you even try to say that I'm
> breaking the spirit of the law.
>
> Jason
>
>
>>
>
>> Greg
>
>>
>
>>
>
>>
>
>> ----------------------------------------
>
>>> Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 22:43:03 -0800
>
>>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] It is a sad day.....
>
>>> From: meteoritekid at gmail.com
>
>>> To: geeg48 at msn.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
>>>
>
>>> Greg, Ron, Chris, All,
>
>>>
>
>>> And some here might disagree with you about your point of view;
>
>>> "something that [you]'ve observed over the past few years" isn't fact,
>
>>> it's opinion, and if you want to start a debate about how large
>
>>> governments are bad, I think you should take it elsewhere - and
>
>>> perhaps stop stating your point of view as though it was fact.
>
>>>
>
>>> With regards to that sort of a decision about meteorites - nothing's
>
>>> changed recently, and even if it did or had, it wouldn't stop anyone
>
>>> from hunting for them; it's easy enough to say that you're looking for
>
>>> *anything* else...and if they ask you what the brown rock that you've
>
>>> found is, do you really expect the BLM officer to know what a
>
>>> meteorite looks like?
>
>>> This whole topic is inane - all of the meteorites that we've found on
>
>>> public land belong to the government, and they've yet to start
>
>>> claiming them, with few exceptions.
>
>>> Be happy with that, and if that changes, let me know.
>
>>>
>
>>> Personally, I agree with Ron Hartman. Yes, I believe that responsible
>
>>> hunters with cameras and GPS' should be allowed to hunt. But the data
>
>>> that's being lost by people who don't care to carefully record each
>
>>> chip...it's just not scientific. There's a reason archaeologists grid
>
>>> their sites meticulously in an attempt to find and use every iota of
>
>>> information that they might attain from their field work: it's because
>
>>> once they've been there and gone through it, that information is
>
>>> either found and recorded, or it's lost to science forever.
>
>>>
>
>>> It's at least partly why native american remains and vertebrate
>
>>> fossils are on the prohibited list - most of the people looking to
>
>>> recover them simply don't record the scientific information necessary
>
>>> to place them in a useful scientific frame, and that's recognized by
>
>>> the scientific community and by politicians (I know, there are other
>
>>> political reasons why we can't pick up indian relics, but at least
>
>>> take vertebrate fossils into account).
>
>>>
>
>>> Unless you advocate the legality of collecting all such materials in a
>
>>> commercial fashion, I really don't see how you can ask for meteorites
>
>>> in particular. It just seems like a political self-interest argument
>
>>> that you're only putting forth because *you* want the right to do what
>
>>> *you* want, regardless of what's better for science.
>
>>>
>
>>> I'm seeing a lot of loss.
>
>>>
>
>>> Until a few years ago, every single fragment from every single lakebed
>
>>> in California was carefully documented, recorded, and submitted. It's
>
>>> the only reason that we were able to map complex strewn-fields and
>
>>> fragmentation fields on many lakebeds, and we made sure to grid
>
>>> several lakes in such a way as to find nearly two-hundred stones on
>
>>> lakebeds that were "searched out." Stones ranging from about a pound
>
>>> down to half a gram.
>
>>> This isn't happening universally anymore.
>
>>>
>
>>> Which isn't to say that many people aren't doing spectacular jobs of
>
>>> documenting their finds, but perhaps there should be some sort of
>
>>> qualifying criteria for the ability to pick up these scientific
>
>>> treasures.
>
>>>
>
>>> On our last hunting trip, amongst other things, we recovered a single
>
>>> twelve-fragment stone from a California lakebed. The initial seven
>
>>> fragments were relatively easy to find; we spent an additional four
>
>>> hours crawling over the area, which resulted in the finding of five
>
>>> more fragments, three of which weighed about 0.2-0.1 grams, one of
>
>>> which was nearly sixty feet away.
>
>>> I don't know if we found all of them, but I know for a fact that if I
>
>>> did miss any, they were in that 0.1 to 0.2 gram size-range, and, given
>
>>> the fact that daylight was fading, I couldn't have done better. We'll
>
>>> be returning there anyways, to "clean up." The total weight of all of
>
>>> the fragments was something like fifteen grams.
>
>>>
>
>>> http://picasaweb.google.com/MeteoriteKid/PersonalFinds#5426012774669234562
>
>>>
>
>>> Perhaps we shouldn't have photographed every find, or GPS'd them all,
>
>>> or measured the distances between each so that we would be able to
>
>>> draw a map of the field later.
>
>>>
>
>>> But we did, and now that information will be available to science
>
>>> forever, and it will not be lost. Was it worth four hours of our
>
>>> lives to take care of that? Four hours that we could have spent
>
>>> hunting elsewhere - or perhaps getting food?
>
>>> Perhaps, perhaps not, but that information is now safe.
>
>>> And many hunters nowadays don't put forth the effort. Some do. Many do not.
>
>>> It's why, while we do have information regarding the Franconia, Gold
>
>>> Basin, and Ash Creek strewnfields, we do not have good maps of any of
>
>>> these, aside from Jim Kriegh's original map of Gold Basin, which is
>
>>> now still useful but relatively obsolete.
>
>>>
>
>>> You tell me what's better: the right for irresponsible hunters to lose
>
>>> information, or the protection of this irreplaceable scientific
>
>>> information. The rocks aren't going anywhere. Even if it takes a
>
>>> century for the appropriate scientific programs to come about that
>
>>> will recover them, they won't age much in that time, if at all.
>
>>>
>
>>> The age of profiteering off of dinosaur fossils by people like Edward
>
>>> Cope and Othniel Marsh undoubtedly uncovered a vast amount of
>
>>> information and fossils - to quote Wikipedia, as unreliable as it is,
>
>>> "Unfortunately, many valuable dinosaur specimens were damaged or
>
>>> destroyed due to the pair's rough methods: for example, their diggers
>
>>> often used dynamite to unearth bones (a method modern paleontologists
>
>>> would find appalling). Despite their unrefined methods, the
>
>>> contributions of Cope and Marsh to paleontology were vast: Marsh
>
>>> unearthed 86 new species of dinosaur and Cope discovered 56, a total
>
>>> of 142 new species."
>
>>>
>
>>> This, in my mind, is what many people are doing today in the field of
>
>>> meteorites. Yes, many meteorites are being recovered, but look around
>
>>> you at the staggering scientific losses that are occurring
>
>>> simultaneously...
>
>>>
>
>>> And Chris, too, is right. The existence of an un-enforced law that
>
>>> "protects" meteorites in the United States is likely the sole reason
>
>>> that we don't have more prohibitive and widely enforced laws. Be
>
>>> happy with the BLM website, and the fact that they likely couldn't
>
>>> enforce the law even if they exhibited a wish to (and they haven't, by
>
>>> and large).
>
>>>
>
>>> Jason
>
>>>
>
>>> On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 8:59 PM, GREG LINDH wrote:
>
>>>>
>
>>>>
>
>>>> Jason,
>
>>>>
>
>>>> Just stating an observation about something that I've observed over the past few years. My statement wasn't just about our current administration. The statement was a generalization about government. I stand by what I said. The meteorite thing is just one example of the intrusion of government into the lives of people. The only reason it is bothering the members here is that it affects them directly. I don't see any reason that people shouldn't be able to hunt for meteorites on any land, except Indian land or private property (without permission). All the restrictions have *never* made sense to me. My post's subject is directly attached to the subject of meteorites. Bottom line: it is the unwarranted intrusion of government that upset Ruben. No? If this is indeed a new ruling that eliminates meteorite hunting, then my topic seems quite relevant.
>
>>>>
>
>>>>
>
>>>> Greg Lindh
>
>>>>
>
>>>>
>
>>>>
>
>>>>
>
>>>>
>
>>>> ----------------------------------------
>
>>>>> Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:36:04 -0800
>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] It is a sad day.....
>
>>>>> From: meteoritekid at gmail.com
>
>>>>> To: geeg48 at msn.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
>>>>>
>
>>>>> Really, Greg?
>
>>>>> Politics?
>
>>>>>
>
>>>>> On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 8:17 PM, GREG LINDH wrote:
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>> Hi Ruben,
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>> Everyone should take this to heart....the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. Our government is getting quite big, no?
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>> Greg Lindh
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>
>
>>>>>> ----------------------------------------
>
>>>>>>> Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 18:51:50 -0700
>
>>>>>>> From: mrmeteorite at gmail.com
>
>>>>>>> To: damoclid at yahoo.com
>
>>>>>>> CC: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] It is a sad day.....
>
>>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>> Richard and all,
>
>>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>> This is NOT just for Oregon and Washington (Hell, who is hunting
>
>>>>>>> meteorites there anyway?)
>
>>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>> John Blennart has been talking with government people who have assured
>
>>>>>>> him. "All the old Forest Service and BLM web sites will be changed to
>
>>>>>>> read the new rules for meteorites."
>
>>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>> This is REAL! John has been saying this was in the works for weeks now
>
>>>>>>> - It seems that the recent interest in meteorites made them look into
>
>>>>>>> doing this.
>
>>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>> Rock On!
>
>>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>> Ruben Garcia
>
>>>>>>>
>
>>>>>>> Website: http://www.mr-meteorite.net
>
>>>>>>> Articles: http://www.meteorite.com/blog/
>
>>>>>>> Videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=meteorfright#p/u
>
>>>>>>> ______________________________________________
>
>>>>>>> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
>
>>>>>>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>
>>>>>>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
>>>>>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
>>>>>> ______________________________________________
>
>>>>>> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
>
>>>>>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>
>>>>>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
>>>>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
>>>>>>
>
>
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Received on Tue 09 Mar 2010 02:16:55 PM PST