There are two reasons why we can't get rid of carbonaceous chondrite
group names. First, unlike Martian meteorites, we don't know where C
chondrites came from. We can't point to a single asteroid as the source
for any of them, let alone all of them. So the group names are still
serving their basic purpose of ordering the chaos. Second, the only
language we have to describe the rocks known as chondrites is by their
group names. They can't be described with standard rock nomenclature.
So this is not a fair comparison.
I didn't say Martian meteorite names were not useful. I said they were
archaic, historical artifacts.
Jeff
On 1/26/2013 11:38 PM, Carl Agee wrote:
Hi Jeff and all you Nomenclature Enthusiasts out there:
I think the martian meteorite names do serve a useful purpose, they
are a sort of short-hand, so that you don’t have to be an igneous
petrologist to know that one type of martian is different from
another. So when we say a martian meteorite is a “NWA7034-ite”, or
“blackbeauty-ite”, or a “saharite” or whatever name you want to pick,
we are implicitly talking about a breccia, that is water-rich, alkali
basalt, with higher-than-SNC oxygen isotope values, ~ 2 byo, etc. For
example, like it or not, when we say “Allan Hills” the first thing
comes that comes to mind is ALH 84001. When you say orthopyroxenite
maybe not so much. If it’s such a great idea to do away with martian
types, why don’t we go ahead and do away with all the carbonaceous
chondrite groups like CI, CM, CV, etc. and just call them all
carbonaceous chondrites, that of course have a wide range of
compositions, textures, mineralogies etc.? Meteoritics isn’t the only
science that has colorful nomenclature. Mineralogists still like to
name new minerals after famous mineralogists, instead of just naming
them by their chemical composition or crystal structure.
Carl Agee
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