A Short Guide to BCC Meteorite Appearance And Weathered Stony Meteorites Generally.

This is in response to Matteo Chinelatto, a meteorite dealer and collector who has written me often regarding primarily the issues below, and who received items A and B in answer to his questions from a scientist at Washington University, Saint Louis. This was regarding our only lunar sample. Thank you for bringing these mistakes by this scientist  to my attention Matteo. The scientist wrote:
          A. The Nomenclature Committee has not recognized a lunar meteorite from the state of  Texas and,
          B. The EDS analysis is outside of the ranges.

           Here is our answer .  The report to:  The Commission On Research Integrity states in part:
An Investigator or reviewer shall not with the intent to deceive, or in reckless disregard for the truth, a.) state or present a significant falsehood: or b.)omit a fact so that what is stated or presented as a whole states or presents a significant falsehood.
        In A above he's not telling you that the sample(s) is not authentic Matteo, he's just telling you that the Committee has not named and or recognized the sample(s) you are interested in. But he's relaying it in such a way so as to lead you to think it is not authentic.
    [There are thousands of meteorites all over the world and because the Committee has not named and classified them does not mean they are not meteorites, Matteo].  In B above he's doing the same thing; he's not telling you the sample(s) is not authentic, he's just telling you that the sample is outside of the ranges of current lunar samples. If you pay close attention, what he's really telling you is that the Moon is a differentiated planetary body consistent with all scientific findings. In other words, BCC9601 has to be outside of the known ranges if it is lunar surface crust. He knows this, I know this and so does any knowledgeable scientist.  There are several ways you can prove this.  Do you understand what he's doing?  He is agreeing with what is there in front of him but he is presenting it in such a way (fact omission) so as to mislead you.  Let me put it this way, he's doing something wrong without the appearance of doing something wrong.  Does that make any sense?
    Matteo, when people in Korotev's position get caught saying things like " the Clementine Mission,  Prospector Mission etc., were not important, that we learned nothing new from them, he is sunk.  He has been doing this for so long, shifting back and forth to fill certain needs it saturates his psyche and obviously really believes we learned nothing from these missions. This statement alone raises numerous troubling questions. Why did we spend so much money on missions that would not yield some benefit? Why did we spend so much time gathering and processing data that Korotev would later say is useless?  Why did so many scientists and engineers waste their time, and our time, and tax dollars?  That makes no sense.
    The fact of the matter is, the government through taxpayer mandate spent millions of dollars on these missions and many scientists have done fantastic research processing the data from them Matteo. If you read the work obtained from the data relevant to these various missions, including the works of  Jeffrey Taylor, Tompkins, Pieters, and on and on, you will get some of the best scientific information ever printed on paper.  And for stellar grain research you need go no further than Angela Speck because (except for ESA) no one is making any new or relevant discoveries in that field. Dr. Speck is very thorough and easy for you to understand.

Matteo, the mental energy Mr. Korotev used to intenionally mislead you is called cherry picking. This is analaogous to bait and switch schemes used by con artists to deprive you of something of value. Cherry picking is establishing a result and then picking out anything to support the deprivation. Now in this case he used one or two characteristics that he does not agree with and emphasize those while simultaneously ignoring or suppressing the outstanding 95 percent of the remaining confirming evidence. He made a major faux pas,  because when he sent you the email this indicated that; a) he saw the EDS anlayis, b) he intentionally ignored the data that did not suit his intentions, c) a credible and competent scientist does not engage in scientific misconduct and fraud to mislead you and the public, which he did. Now as I mentioned before, I could play the same game and tell you that QUE94281 a supposed lunar meteorite from Antarctica is not a meteorite. Because it contains vesicles and small vugs and meteorites are always very compact and dense which is in agreement with the Dutch Meteor Society (DMS) rules of recognition. So you see, we gain nothing by attempting to mislead you. On the other hand Mr. Korotev has a lot to lose including your trust, confidence, and loyalship and following.

lunar crater
    Look at the drawing above, Matteo. When Korotev writes BCC9601 is outside the ranges, he is just telling you in words what the drawing above shows. Point A is the Lunar Highlands surface (high in refractories low in mafic mineralogy) because it is the ancient differentiated surface crust. Point B is the bottom of the crater(s), (high in mafic mineralogy low in refractories from beneath the surface). He got his information principally from the samples found on the lunar surface B1. Those samples came from deeper and or the bottom of the craters and landed on the lunar surface where found by the Astronauts because they had no opportunity to escape the lunar environment.
    Matteo, there are approximately 12-15 reasons and different ways we can show why BCC9601 is lunar surface crust.  And we could post this on our page in excruciating detail.  However, it would make no difference to the outcome of the sample provenance, it's authenticity or any other matter that isn't already shown. It would be good only to the extent that it adds, enhances, and helps to complete a picture by confirming hundreds of pre- Prospector and Clementine in-situ analysis research reports based on Apollo and Russian samples. It only confirms very beautifully Clementine data records is about all BCC9601 could do.
    Now, I could try to mislead you myself and say the Apollo samples are not authentic because they are outside the ranges of BCC9601,  and they are. But they have to be slightly outside of the ranges of BCC9601, being subsurface material and rewelded fragmental breccias from mafic, subsurface material. And this does not lead you to believe that the Apollo samples are not authentic does it? Some of the samples found in Antarctica and part of the inventory (lunar) look very suspicious.  In fact they may not be lunar, and I probably would not be convinced until after I examine them myself based on other mistakes that have been made.  A1 above represents BCC9601 surface crust because it fits chemically. Do you understand?  But the method he told you this leads you into believing that the sample(s)  is not authentic. And this playing with and parsing words and phrases by this scientist is sheer nonsense and infantile behavior.
   Matteo, he has no choice.  The machine created to conduct science can mislead and misdirect people like you, and it must be oiled by tax dollars to keep it going.  If errors are made sometimes intentional scientific misconduct and misrepresentation are thrown into the mix in order to conceal mistakes . If the machine slows down and stops we will be able to see its various parts and components and see why it is broken and operating so badly, and the source of the misconduct and how widespread it is. Do you understand?
    I hope I demystified a very simple concept for you in lunar science (verifiable), and helped you see how easy it is for otherwise good people to behave very badly. You were misled and you may have been for sometime.  It is unreasonable for you to expect that others, including myself,  can be as easily misled and misinformed.
    The game is over, Matteo, finito, finished!  We're talking about millions of wasted dollars because his co-workers and colleagues are either afraid or too cozy to challenge some of the things he writes.  The net that was cast out is having to be expanded to accommodate the width and breadth of scientific misconduct.

BCC9601 Appearance (Lunar Surface Crust)

    A scientist at Washington University in St. Louis (who could that be), recently constructed a web page late January of this year, displaying a variety of stones he claims may or may not be meteorites. One of our samples BCC9601(Lunar) was cleverly included on that page. What struck us as odd is as far as we know he has never been interested in constructing a pseudo meteorite or' meteor wrong' page until late January, long after I posted his unbridled scientific misconduct found in this page. The timing was very interesting but expected.  Why the sudden interest in meteor wrongs and pseudo meteorites, or co-mingling authentic samples with non authentic samples?  The really sad thing about it is that anything he says can no longer be taken seriously or as fact, because he has conflicted himself out by his uncorrected mistakes. That's one of the price tags for scientific misconduct, you can no longer be taken seriously.  I'ts sad but true folks.  When a scientist screws up that bad, and his supervisors and colleagues do nothing about it, it just means the entire system is elitist, untouchable, and lacking in accountability. The information below invalidates and renders his posting useless as far as our sample(s)  is concerned.
      You may have noticed that BCC meteorites generally contain no fusion crust and do not display regmaglypts (thumbprint indentations). An ability to connect the dots and use common sense is required here. The fusion crust is an oxidation of the surface as a result of heating and reconfiguration to approximately a mm or so caused by a rapid abrasive entry through the atmosphere. First of all, because the samples were found in a creek bed the assumption has to be made that extensive post impact abrasive action has occurred from water and sand. This would have ground the surface gradually over time. However, we also contend that since the samples were found adjacent to the limestone cretaceous sea floor, they landed in the cretaceous seas or shallow swamps during their first arrival. (Enough weathering has taken place on their surface leading us to believe they may have been here for tens of millions of years). This combination of sudden temperature shift combined with impact force into the sea would have weakened the fusion crust, making it easier to remove.  Recall that at least one sample from the Monahans Meteorite buried itself beneath the asphalt in Texas. This just speaks to the tremendous force upon entry. For any scientist to insist that all Meteorites must have a fusion crust or regmaglypts (thumbprints) to be confirmed as meteorites is really pigeonholing and confining the limits of science and new discoveries in a self serving attempt to maintain the failed status quo found by us in Universities literally nationwide. These requirements are an out dated notion, and in fact should have been thrown out by 1990. If we are stuck trying to restrict acceptance of new samples based on surface appearance, fusion crust versus no fusion crust, and regmaglypts versus none, then either we refuse to learn anything new, or we are laying naked an obvious motive and agenda.
 See, PIGEONHOLING PLANETARY METEORITES: THE LESSONS OF MISCLASSIFICATION OF EET87521 AND ALH84001,  M.M. Lindstrom 1, A.H. Treiman2 and D.W. Mittlefehldt3, 1SN2 NASA-JSC, 2Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3C23 Lockheed, Houston TX 77058.
       The case is made here that no one single characterisitic should be used in identifying and classifying samples but rather that a combination of factors must be considered. This is what we did when we identified our samples. Had we insisted on a black surface appearance and indentations, we would have missed some of the most important meteorites found to date. Contrary to what has been written from Washington University, a meteorite loses its fusion crust over time. See Planetary Studies Foundation, "What do meteorites look like"? section.
    My experience has been that they depend on your ignorance to control the outcome of the events. You know why? Because if, like us, you do your own work that diminishes their extravagant pseudo-importance and they are no longer needed and important.  If a colloquium of scientists could convince our readers that our sample(s) are not authentic by saying they are not green enough, square enough,  round enough, flat enough, or any intellectual switch and bait scheme they would do it. Of course, they would like anonymity, but that cannot be given. In fact, even if the lunar sample had a fusion crust for instance, an appointed fusion crust expert would come up and say, "but its not thick enough or its too thin".  And I know some nut is dying to step forward and say, hey, your lunar sample has a difference in thallium content varying by 0.00000000012  % from known concentrations and therefore it may not be a lunar meteorite, or some similar lunacy. I've seen this before. The presence of a fusion crust should be restricted to use by children (literally) who are first learning about Meteorites. Adults like us should be able to see the Meteorite beneath the fusion crusted surface, i.e. don't judge a book by its cover.
    A beautifully shaped triangular Stony Meteorite indicates there was very little momentous shifting and turning as it came in. A sample with many flat surfaces and slightly rounded corners indicates multi-shifting and turning as it came in. The flattening of the sides and lack of thumb printing on our Stony Meteorites indicates (aside from terrestrial weathering),  that entire layers of crystals were removed in a uniform fashion rather than a melting of the surface and refolding itself over the main mass with some material completely separating as in Fe-Ni Meteorites.
     You can show by looking at a periodic chart and the sample bulk chemical composition why it exists and did not completely deteriorate. Everyone knows that quartz is highly resistant to weathering. Although, it breaks apart into tiny pieces, including sand, it reaches a point into which no further breakdown is possible. What this tells us is that the higher the Silica content within the main mass of a differentiated sample the lower the metal/ free metal content. This is true for BCC9601 the differentiated lunar sample. This also tells us that there is a rise in insluative properties and qualities (EDS analysis)  rather than conductive properties because there is less metal than in an Fe-Ni meteorite.  One can establish the trends based on composition and plotting this using the periodic chart and trends as a guide.
    Jefferys and Robbins write in their, " DISCOVERING ASTRONOMY, pp123, Univeristy of Texas Austin, 1981, The Moon, What is the Nature of the Lunar Surface? "Astronomers have measured the rate at which the cooling takes place, using very sensitive intruments placed at the focus of the telescope have found that the Moon cools off quite slowly indeed. The Moon's surface must be composed of a very good insulator of heat for it to be able to hold the heat of the lunar day so effectively."
    The conductive surface properties of Fe-Ni meteorites allows heating to a much greater degree upon atmospheric entry than in Stony Meteorites. This creates a situation where melting occurs to a greater depth resulting in greater deformation of the Fe-Ni Meteorite sample as it comes in,  resulting in the pitting known as regmaglypts. We know this because our Ni-micrometeorites are fusion crusted oxidized, black, and very deformed in many areas indicating that the sample(s)  melted. The Ni-micrometeorites are very hard and less deformable as the temperature lowers to ambient temperature conditions. Our stony Meteorites on the other hand, are less likely to show this pitting and appear more flight oriented, and elongated with uneven surfaces and even triangular shaped. Although, our Stony Meteorites can fracture in weak sections, the entire samples do not completely decompose by oxidation such as Meteorites high in transition metals. While a fusion crusted sample with regmaglypts may be good  indicators of Meteorite likelihood from past experience, those characteristics can also be used in a means to justify the ends for nurturing excuses, and  to create a plethora of intentional mistakes and claim ignorance in employing outdated standards.
    The fusion crust requirement described here is called "changing of the goal posts"  in scientific misconduct. This is a well documented tactic (see below), employed by those who have lost so much ground they need to change the rules to trip up new discoveries and findings. In other  words,  chemical analysis and lab validation is not enough, the sample has to look like a burnt object, which is rather dumbfounding  because chemical analysis is more reliable than mere appearance. But you have to consider the sources of this further misinformation.

meteorite finds

Further information on identifying meteorites from us.

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