Dear list members, I feel obliged to inform the list that the description of NWA 1839 that I forwarded to the list (twice) is actually only a draft, incomplete, and does not even include the names of two of the scientists involved - namely, T. Irving and S. Kuehner. This was certainly an unintentional mistake on the part of a few, which has caused some embarrassment within the academic community. I am not happy to find myself involved in this matter, as I think I am more than careful to avoid crossing the lines of secrecy and ethical concerns.
However, I have decided that my memory is not as keen as it used to be, and I no longer want the responsibility of sorting the vast amount of information that I receive from innumerable sources into a "secret" file and a "public" file. Therefore, I am stating publicly to all, that any meteorite-related information that I may learn through any source will be treated as public information, and I will do with it what I feel is appropriate and beneficial to the needs of myself and the community at large, just as I have been doing up to now. I think the responsibility for this secrecy lies with both the grant seeking academic community and the profit seeking meteorite business community - I belong to neither (still waiting for that scholarship to UNM or NAU). I will continue to frugally seek the meteorites I desire, paying close attention to whether or not I already own such a meteorite type so that I don't waste money buying duplicate items. This is the hardest part of collecting that seems to cause so much consternation I think. So to sum up, starting today, David Weir will not keep your secrets about a meteorite that has not been deemed official by NomCom so don't tell him/me. The potential benefits gained (saving money by eliminating duplication, and some vicarious thrills) are outweighed by the potential harm to personal relationships. All I need is to read the few meteorite journals which publish the information I seek. This is more information than I know what to do with already. My personal collection is as complete as I care to make it for now, pending publication of new types from unique parent bodies. I worked around tigers today, yesterday was elephants and cheetahs. My work environment provides me with a perspective on the meteorite community that doesn't paint a totally healthy picture, not as it should be for the collecting and studying of rocks from space. I hope our community will eliminate some of these lines of secrecy in order to make life both more simple and more pleasurable, and for some, more profitable. Regards, David meteoritestudies.com ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
