New rules for hunting meteorites Options

[Woody]

Looks like the Feds are stepping up and placing restrictions on collecting meteorites. I recognize the interest and benefit science might have but the way I interpret this means more regulations placed on our public lands and activities. This might be a bit of a rant on my part but I hate all these rules and regulations on our public lands. I am reminded about the last time I was in the California N.F. I wanted to spend a couple of days in the back country camping. I found out that I needed a permit in order to even have a campfire. Here is another extreme, I was in Germany a few years ago and got an annual fishing license. It cost about 100$. However, if you actually wanted to use it you had to go down to the county court house before the last business day, and pay an additional cost for each and every day you planned on fishing. It was about 10$ extra per day.

This kind of suggest the same thing, you can’t go out hunting meteorites unless you buy a permit.



http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/10/15/...intcmp=features

[EMac]

That non-binding BLM policy Instruction Memorandum about meteorite collecting expired in September 2013. There are no regulations or court decisions about the ownership of meteorites on public land. There is however a rather large body of law on the recovery of valuable minerals left by meteorites - we call that mining.

Good catch...I didn't see the expiration date on it.

I'm not just speculating here. One of the foremost mining engineers and mining lawyers in American history proved, claimed, mined and received mineral patents totaling 640 acres to a meteorite deposit. Daniel Moureau Barringer mined tons of nickle rich iron as well as very rare Moissanite from his placer claims on Coon Butte. Today the official name is Berringer Crater but it's better known as simply Meteor Crater.

I'm not certain you're comparing apples to apples here. The patent issued to Standard Iron Company was in 1903. In 1906 and again in 1909 Barringer and Tilghman presented their arguments to the Academy of Natural Sciences (link), but the theory wasn't accepted until the 1960s when Shoemaker demonstrated the crater was similar in structure to nuclear weapons tests craters (presence of coesite: link). Barringer estimated he could turn his $500k investment into a $250M profit by mining what he estimated to be 10M tons of iron from the meteorite. It would be hard to argue the patent was issued for meteorite specimens when it took the scientific community another 4 decades to accept the theory.

One writer said of Barringer’s 1909 address to the National Academy of Sciences at Princeton: “[S]ome persons could scarcely conceal their derisive thoughts. Nevertheless… Barringer ploughed through his paper, painful though it must have been for him, until he completed it.”

(Source)

I can't find any comparable, modern meteorite cases, much less one where someone is looking to mine a meteorite impact for the intrinsic value of the meteorite material (i.e. smelt it down to sell as iron as Barringer intended) vs as a collectible specimen. I would argue, just like Barringer experienced, that anyone seeking to mine a meteorite impact for intrinsic material value would be even more hard pressed to pass the prudent man test much less the valuable mineral test. It's not until we consider the collector value of the meteorite samples that we start to broach that crossover you mention. This is what I interpret to be the crux of Gene's challenge: are collectors' specimens locatable minerals? It's an interesting question to ponder, particularly in the economic light in which Gene presents the question. For instance just a few weeks ago at an outing we were discussing the value of the goethite specimen Colin found, and the figures lobbed out had an $18k range.

My desire seems to be aligned with yours: that any future legal challenges as to whether meteorites constitute locatable minerals go the way of the claiming miner(s). I think solid arguments can be made, but I lack your confidence absent suitable case law. Similar arguments can be made for dinosaur bones, for instance...

There is some case law on meteorites (Old Woman Meteorite, Goddard v Winchell), but these don't deal with mining claims.

Obviously it is possible to claim, mine and receive patent to land where sufficient concentrated meteorite metal deposits are found. Simple collecting of scattered meteorite material does not amount to a valuable mineral deposit under the law so it is regulated just like rock or specimen collecting.

Securing a patent in today's age won't happen until they lift the moratorium on land patents; if they do, submitting the application will likely reopen the discussion. My opinion is that it's a very grey area, even without land patents, just waiting for some brave, unfortunate soul to take up the mantle in court (I also suspect not by choice).

Edit: fixed grammar and readability