Aloha Jeff and Zelimir,
Mahalo for the history lesson on Kem Kem. It was both informative and
interesting, and provides insight into meteorite hunting in pre-NWA
days.
gary
On Aug 14, 2009, at 12:09 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Hi List,
To bring a little more confusion to the "Kem-Kem issue", here is
another story.
It deals with a meteorite found in South Morocco in 1998 (31°7'N /
5°11'W), thus at a time the generic NWA designation did not exist.
That one stone weighing 1088 g was found by Michel Franco and, after
analysis, the remaining mass of 942.5 g of that L6 was offered for
sale (if I remember well at the Ste Marie-aux-Mines mineral show in
1999, where I purchased it).
Michel told me that although fully analyzed at Open University, it
had not yet a name but that he proposed "Kem Kem"....
I don't know whether it was the first time that such name was
proposed but Michel was very confident it will be accepted by the
Nom. Com. so, in the meantime, I catalogued it in my collection
using "Kem-Mem" as provisional name.
Months or even years later, Michel told me that it eventually
received another "generic" name, thus "NWA 052" (the NWA
nomenclature just appeared in the Bulletins).
I then changed the name but added "Kem-Lem" as SYNONYM.
If you go to the Met Bull database, you will see that they now
mention "Kem-Kem" as ORIGIN or PSEUDONYM for NWA 052, which seemed
logical.
Now after the debate we had these days and the clearings brought by
Jeff, it is obvious that for my NWA 052, "Kem-Kem" is the origin,
not a synonym nor pseudo.
(I note that the same mention "origin or pseudonym: "Kem-Kem" is
mentioned for NWA 753 (R3.9) found years after and this might also
probably be the case for some other NWA's (I didn't check), which is
in line with the whole issue cleared by Jeff.
I will (just personally) retain "Kem-Kem" as synonym of my NWA 052
for "historical purposes", supposing this was the first NWA
oringinating from the vast Kem-Kem region (something I am far from
being sure - I did not check).
I wish to thank once again Jeff for his statements, that are of real
importance.
My best,
Zelimir
PS: if anybody is interested, I can provide a list giving all the
synonyms of the meteorites sitting in my collection, should this be
of some help or general interest for someone.
Jeff Grossman <[email protected]> a écrit :
The Kem Kem meteorites from Casper were a trigger for the NomCom
approving the NWA designation, which was my coinage in January
2000. But to really understand the history, you need to go back a
few years earlier, to El Hammami (aka Hamada du Draa), which was
the first case for which the NomCom became aware that meteorites
were being transported and sold in this region. With this history,
plus a series of inquiries from other dealers about the Kem Kem
meteorites, compounded by our inability to learn many details about
those meteorites from Casper, we needed to take action of some
kind. We decided on a generic term, Northwest Africa, that could
be applied as a "tracking" label to all stones, even ones that had
not been classified, so that individual meteorites would not be
divided and sold under multiple names. We also had no ability to
investigate multiple vague or anonymous claims about meteorite
provenance in the region. Thus it was decided that all of these
meteorites would be named NWA, even those that had been
classified. I'm not sure what ever happened to the Kem Kems that
triggered the whole thing. Since I don't think Casper ever
numbered them, there were no synonyms to publish, assuming they
eventually became NWAs.
jeff
Jeff
At 01:02 AM 8/10/2009, Jason Utas wrote:
Dirk, Brian, All,
This came up on the list a while back; from what I understood,
Casper
sold those as well as a number of other stones under that name
around
that time, and only classified one stone, before grouping a number
of
similar-looking meteorites together under that name (I believe the
mentality was that of the meteorite-world pior to the NWA rush,
where
not every piece had to be classified to verify its composition).
And
while not every piece does have to be classified in many cases,
this,
I believe, was a situation in which things were not made certain. I
never got the catalog at the time, bit I do recall there being some
consternation as meteorites were being misclassified/misnamed.
Hence the confusion, as the name applies to a number of late 1990's
NWA meteorites which came out of the area via Casper. I might only
call it a generic name at this point because it is a name that
applies
to a number of petrographically distinct meteorites. Single name,
unknown number of meteorites. I don't know if it quite fits the
definition of the word "generic," but if it doesn't, it's not far
off.
Regards,
Jason
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 9:52 PM, drtanuki<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Brian and List,
Brian your are incorrect in your history lesson.
Michael Casper announced in his December 1999 catalogue that "a
new find out of Morocco- Kem-Kem" was "Found in August, 1999.
Stone. Classification pending. Kem Kem, Dahara, Morocco".
Casper`s catalogue lists:
22.4g @ $44.80;
26.9g@ $53.80
31.5g@ $63.00
33.5g@ $67.00
41.0g@ $82.00
46.8g@ $93.60
53.2g@ $106.40
58.6g@ $117.20
67.4g@ $134.80
70.0g@ $140.00
83.1g@ $166.20
114.9g@ $229.80
153.6g@ $307.20
In the same catalogue, he (Casper) has a multi-kilo piece
photographed, which I purchased. Kem-Kem was NOT a catch-all
term for the meteorites of NWA (Moroc/Algeria) at the time, as
you wrote.
So please do not confuse the messy history of the NWAs by
INCORRECTLY calling Kem-Kem the orginal generic name before NWAs.
I was in Morocco in December 2000- January 2001 for six weeks and
at Kem-Kem prior/during the sale of NWA482 in the year of the
planetary alignment and eclipse... there were UK-Euro-hippies by
the busloads for the huge festival and arrested development.
The only great "hunter" that I ran into while I was there was
Dean Bessey in his Fiat at Merzouga (he dismounted his for
shade); prior to Bessey Specks perhaps not?
Missed seeing Mike Farmer, Strope and others; but, I did spot a
mad German or Austrian at the petrol stop during the heat of the
day. Also missed the Great Habibi!
When in Erfoud don`t miss out on the daily variety of Targine
beef, mutton or chicken and 30 glasses of mint tea.
At the end of six weeks of wearing Berber you will be blue...Idir
met Idir et Kem-Kem! Truly an awesome experience to be at Kem-
Kem at SunSet on top of a tall hill and watch the winter shadows
fall.
Forget the Berber Shave and stick with Burma Shave if you are
searchingforfun.
Best Regards, Dirk Ross...Tokyo
--- On Mon, 8/10/09, Brian Cox <[email protected]>
wrote:
From: Brian Cox <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Kem Kem, the original generic name
before NWAs, Northwest African meteorites
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, August 10, 2009, 12:02 PM
Here is a link to my 19.7 gram Kem
Kem meteorite specimen, originally from Planet Brey
meteorites about 9-10 years ago. Kem Kem was the name that
was used approximately between 1999-2001, I was told, from
our fellow history buffs on the list and other IMCA members
for what we now call "NWAs" "Northwest African" meteorites.
I added a photo of the original COA/card from Planet Brey
just now in this auction.
http://cgi.ebay.com/KEM-KEM-Meteorite-19-7g-IMCA-COA-Unclass-Probably-H5_W0QQitemZ270440268847QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3ef77f042f&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14
Thanks, and clear happy meteorite filled skies tonight!
Brian
IMCA # 6387
searchingforfun is my
ebay User ID
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Dr. Jeffrey N. Grossman phone: (703) 648-6184
US Geological Survey fax: (703) 648-6383
954 National Center
Reston, VA 20192, USA
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Gary Fujihara
AstroDay Institute
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(808) 640-9161, [email protected]
http://astroday.net
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