Keeping it secret would weed out the unprofessional riff raffs that could
potentially cause problems for everybody.
Phil Whitmer
Joshua Tree Earth & Space Musuem
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Fries" <[email protected]>
To: "Meteorite List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 11:12 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Some thoughts on find coords
Greetings all
I've been talking with a few people about logging the Battle Mountain
meteorites, and I'd like to start some discussion on the topic of find
coordinates. This is NOT directed at any one person, but I would like to
editorialize a bit. I'm getting a lot of push-back about printing find
coordinates and I'd like to open the topic to general discussion.
Historically, the locations of found meteorites have been a closely
guarded secret. That made a lot of sense when meteorite hunting relied
most heavily on eyewitness reports. A hunter could easily put in many,
many miles of walking before coming across a meteorite. For finds that are
made with weather radar, however, I don't think its the same situation.
When I post radar analyses, it is like posting a treasure map that says,
"Go Here". At that point everyone knows where the meteorites are, and it
seems to me that the locations of individual stones aren't nearly as
important as they were in the past. (Strewn fields without detailed radar
data are another matter, of course.) Where those locations do matter are
to A) the science behind describing the meteorite fall, and B) the value
of the individual meteorite since a well-documented meteorite should be
worth more than a random stone from a given fall.
I am a scientist, and my first instinct is to collect, analyze,
and -share- data. I understand where that is at odds with the level of
secrecy needed in the past, but I think that that level of secrecy is no
longer needed and actually works contrary to the value of meteorites, both
monetary and scientific. On the Galactic Analytics website, I'm willing to
go against my better instincts and hide find locations, at least until a
scientific paper is released describing the fall. But to be honest, I
think that's a little silly - I'll basically have a table showing
meteorites with the find locations redacted, and then you can scroll down
the page a bit and see a map showing where the meteorites are.
So let me throw this out there as a general question - is it really
important to hide the find locations?
Cheers,
Marc Fries
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