Hi Jason, A few remarks on your recent email:
> With regards to Novato: Without Dr. Jenniskens' efforts (published > fireball trajectory estimates and his description of what to look for), > Novato #1 would not have been recognized, and we do not know > whether or not any of the subsequent finds would have been made. Whether Petrus had published a trajectory or not, a trajectory *was* provided by me, just as I did for Sutter's Mill, Chelyabinsk, Mifflin and quite a few other falls over the last decade. So in the case of Novato, there was redundancy. Also, if not for the second find at Novato by a private hunter, the first might very well have gone unrecognized as a meteorite. Don't forget that Dr. Jenniskens initially misidentified it as being terrestrial. > Instead, thanks to the newspaper articles about the fireball (with > information from Dr. Jenniskens), Novato #1 was recovered. I agree that what Petrus should be most commended for is generating excellent PR in the Bay Area which no doubt contributed to that initial house-hitter being suspected by the homeowner as a meteorite candidate. > Once we had that data point, we knew where to look. People knew where to look, with or without that data point -- at least to within a couple miles crosstrack. > It also gave us greater incentive to look in general. There's no denying that there is always nagging uncertainty prior to making that first find. That first find is always a game-changer. > Stanfield will be another case of a poorly documented fall unless the > coordinates are eventually made 'public' on Galactic Analytics. There seems to be a bit of animosity directed toward the Stanfield fall, or at least it has become a bit of a whipping boy. I don't recall seeing similar negative remarks being made about Ash Creek or Whetstone Mountains or Grimsby or Buzzard Coulee or dare-I-say Chelyabinsk. Why pick on Stanfield? > I'm not saying there are rules that must be adhered to or anything > like that, but the way things are generally being done is unscientific. > If data is being lost, it's a shame. No data is being lost, any more than data at any of the other falls I mentioned has been lost. Cheers, Rob ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list