No, I don't think so. My point is that "availability" depends on who
you are. A typical scientist has neither a large (or any) meteorite
collection nor a budget for purchasing specimens. To him or her,
privately owned meteorites are not directly available. It's
different for a researcher at a large museum, who has significant
trading power and/or an acquisition budget. In the same way a
collector with a small collection has little trading power, so many
museum specimens seem unavailable. However, big-time dealers have
the wherewithal to negotiate trades with museums for some very
special meteorites not normally considered available. For those
collectors or scientists with the greatest resources, nearly
everything is theoretically available except for objects of
extraordinary significance.
So it's not a useful quantity, this "TAW." There's no way to define
it unless you want to change the A to stand for Advertised.
jeff
At 08:56 PM 9/7/2005, stan . wrote:
I think you have it all backwards. institutions ALWAS have things
that the colelcting public would give their eye teeth to get ahold
of, making nearly anything in the hands of colelctors avalible to the
researchers if they want to go out and get it one way or the
other... now what lab wants to do a study on a nice big 100 lbs nwa
869 and has a 100g nakhla individual laying around that they dont need? :)
Gee, I would define Total Available Weight as that material which
is accessible and ready for use in scientific research. This would
include the pieces in Morocco museums, but not pieces in the hands
of collectors.
Availability is a matter of perspective and access, which is
different for different people.
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