Hi Adam, What I said is true. Unenforced laws are meaningless. A warning or whatever. really doesn't add up to anything of substance, and without actual charges or at least a ticket, it's just words.
I'm guessing, only guessing, the incidents you mentioned happened during, or just after the peak of the" Met Men" series, when the BLM was on a mission to keep us from making all that 'easy money'. I'd bet those same officers watching eBay have tired of the activity and moved on to bigger fish long ago. Not much to get uptight about on eBay regarding American meteorites "poached" from state or federal land. It wouldn't take long for them to figure out that monitoring eBay is a nonstarter, not enough money to merit the effort. The crater is the exception but that's a whole other topic. I spend a lot of time in the field, thousands of hours, and I have hard core meteorite hunting buddies pounding the ground for thousands of hours per year without incident. Every single officer I've come into contact with was aware of what I was doing and never once have I had an issue. Some day if we ever get together we can share some stories. As far as artifacts and fossils go you are correct, but only to a point. You can surface collect in most areas as far as I know. I can pick up fossils all day long, no one cares until I find 'Sue'. The same will hold true for meteorites, no one is gonna care until I recover the first North American Lunar. The heat has cooled off. Relax,, Smile and go find some rocks bro. : ) Sincerely, Larry Atkins IMCA # 1941 Ebay alienrockfarm -----Original Message----- From: Raremeteorites via Meteorite-list <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> To: meteorite-list <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> Sent: Mon, Jan 18, 2016 7:02 pm Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Case study: Lake Eyre meteorite vs. U.S. I wish what you said was true. Our entire group was hassled around the Pahrump area in Nevada and twice in California. Eight of our team members were threatened (warned) and I know others on the List who have been hassled as well. Two agents based out Barstow went as far as saying they know what is being sold on eBay. We were told that some public land is designated as heritage or areas of areas of critical concern which are completely off limits while metal detectors cannot be used in other areas. I cannot find any source which lists these areas so an agent can determine this in field so be careful. Just ask artifact and fossils hunters what happened with their once-fine avocation including the fellow who found "Sue" the dinosaur. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Larry Atkins" <thetop...@aol.com> To: <raremeteori...@centurylink.net>; <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 4:38 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Case study: Lake Eyre meteorite vs. U.S. Hi Adam, All, This may be true but it is very rarely if ever enforced, rendering the laws meaningless. BLM got all excited a couple years ago but it came to nothing, ask Michael Mulgrew how his application went. It's a joke. The people enforcing the laws of our wild lands have better things to do than hassle rock hounds. In my sixteen years of hunting and occasional selling I've never heard of, or experienced trouble. In fact, I've encountered law enforcement of all types while in the field, told them exactly what I was doing, talked money and everything, and all they say is "Good luck! Have a great day!" Sell your rocks if you want, business as usual. Sincerely, Larry Atkins IMCA # 1941 Ebay alienrockfarm -----Original Message----- From: Raremeteorites via Meteorite-list <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> To: meteorite-list <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> Sent: Mon, Jan 18, 2016 3:38 pm Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Case study: Lake Eyre meteorite vs. U.S. I agree with everything you stated with the exception of response 2 where you state private citizens can profit from meteorite finds here in the United States. It is against federal and most state laws to use meteorites found on public land for commercial purposes meaning that the finder is not allowed to sell anything they find. Private citizen are prohibited from making a profit without a permit which will never be issued. 2) If private citizens were prohibited from profiting from the recovery of meteorites, would you expect a negative impact on the quantity of recovered material from a new fall? I think this is undeniable, and therefore it certainly follows that the total mass deposited with accredited institutions would suffer. And it's not just the quantity, it's the quality. A meteorite recovered within 24 hours of a fall is obviously more scientifically valuable than one recovered a month later, when terrestrial weathering has altered some rare minerals, and short-lived radioisotopes have decayed below the threshold of detectability. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matson, Rob D. via Meteorite-list" <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> To: <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 12:12 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Case study: Lake Eyre meteorite vs. U.S. Hi Ian, Since you brought up the Creston fall, presumably as a comparison example against current Australian state policies, I feel some counter-commentary is appropriate. > Creston is a example of where things went a bit pair shaped in my mind for > science. In my opinion, Creston was really no stranger than Sutter's Mill, Novato, Battle Mountain, Mifflin or Ash Creek. Science has been well served by all of these falls. > USA had a private network of cameras setup that captured the fireball, a > private individual > and some others extracted that meteorite, the first piece(s) was then on > sold. Finally it > was sold for a ridiculous price. Not illegal or immoral......just not > ideal I think what you are getting at is that only a small fraction of each of these falls made it into the hands of researchers. There are a couple points to consider: (1) How much material do researchers really need to extract the majority of pertinent scientific data from a fall? Sure, if you had infinite time you'd love to have all of it since the individual meteorites from a fall are not necessarily homogenous. (Case in point: Almahata Sitta). But balanced against this is the question of how much more you're going to learn by analyzing all of the stones from an L6 fall. (2) If private citizens were prohibited from profiting from the recovery of meteorites, would you expect a negative impact on the quantity of recovered material from a new fall? I think this is undeniable, and therefore it certainly follows that the total mass deposited with accredited institutions would suffer. And it's not just the quantity, it's the quality. A meteorite recovered within 24 hours of a fall is obviously more scientifically valuable than one recovered a month later, when terrestrial weathering has altered some rare minerals, and short-lived radioisotopes have decayed below the threshold of detectability. (3) Successful meteorite recovery requires a significant skill set AND considerable expenditures of time and money. In the U.S., I expect that more than 95% of the annual resources made available through government grants to recover meteorites goes to ANSMET. I've spent thousands of unpaid hours on the analysis of nearly all U.S. falls that have occurred in the last 15 years, as well as a number of falls outside America, and have devoted a not insignificant amount of time and money traveling to many of these places to recover meteorites. On each of these expeditions I tend to encounter the same couple dozen of dedicated individuals -- names that would all be familiar to anyone on the Meteorite List. On occasion I have seen other scientists "in the field," but I suspect in most cases it was on their own dime and not in an official paid capacity. Meteoriticists are paid to analyze meteorites, not run around the country recovering them. > Now in Australia, we do have an likely issue of finds being hidden ( old > falls and > cold finds) due to our state laws. However this material will just add to > the 50,000 > stones we need to know more about. Where these laws are a benefit is that > when > our DFN etc detects a fall, scientists (not private hunters looking for > profit or cost > recovery) will go out grab the stone and bring it back! Perhaps in Australia this happens. I have not seen evidence that this is the case in the U.S. Researchers have access to the same information that I do: Doppler radar, seismic networks, all-sky cameras, internet posts, the AMS website and a dozen other resources. Nothing other than time and funding is stopping them from competing with private citizens. > We will know where it came from, where it landed, who found it, what it is > and > where it will stay exactly. With much more than just a classification but, > rare orbit > data - which is contributing greatly to mapping our solar system and more! Well, we got all of that on both Sutter's Mill and Creston, in spite of the problems of private land ownership and considerably harder searching conditions than the almost ideal surfaces of the Australian outback. So both systems can work. I just think the current U.S. laws favor a higher success rate than in Australia because they (at least currently) provide enough incentive to boost the people-hours that get devoted to each fall. Best wishes, Rob ______________________________________________ Visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/meteoritecentral and the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com https://pairlist3.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/meteoritecentral and the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com https://pairlist3.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/meteoritecentral and the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com https://pairlist3.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/meteoritecentral and the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com https://pairlist3.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
