I could not agree more. People often forget that there is considerable costs involved in characterizing real meteorites and for some reason they expect this service for free. Meteorite-wrongs tie up a lot of resources and are a drag on the few laboratories that are qualified to study real meteorites. I do not think there is a laboratory left in Arizona that will still take "meteorites" from the general public for study. This is due to the increase in meteorite-wrongs that waste every bodies time. If this increase in meteorite-wrongs continues, expect a lot more laboratories to be off-limits.
Researchers valuable time is better spent on real meteorites rather then telling somebody they are not the latest millionaire. Best Regards, Adam ----- Original Message ---- From: Carl Agee <a...@unm.edu> To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Thu, April 21, 2011 9:41:59 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorwrongs and Meteorites My take on this is the following. Most people who come to us with a suspect meteorite are for some reason expecting that identification costs us nothing, and that we can glance at sample and give quick answer. So when they go to an average geology department and get a "free" meteorite screening they may often get what they pay for -- someone's best guess -- often of dubious merit. Of course there are many samples that are so obviously meteorwrongs that a quick glance is all that is needed. But - I would never tell someone they have an iron meteorite before I had at least run an EDS analysis on it for Fe and Ni. And that's just the start -- if you want to know what kind of an iron -- well that's a lot more work still! But of course not everyone has an SEM in their basement. And guess what? These instruments cost money, and the technicians who keep them running are paid salaries. As for stones, yes, I can tell you fairly quickly, running a calibrated electron microprobe, if your sample is a eucrite, ureilite, lunar, martian -- or a just terrestrial basalt. So this is the dilemma that we often face: definitive answers usually take time, money, and expertise -- there is no free lunch for good data. -- Carl B. Agee Director and Curator, Institute of Meteoritics Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences MSC03 2050 University of New Mexico Albuquerque NM 87131-1126 Tel: (505) 750-7172 Fax: (505) 277-3577 Email: a...@unm.edu http://epswww.unm.edu/iom/pers/agee.html ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
