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]

I'm still reading through the previous literature you've provided, so, for now, I'm focused on your previous post's last question. My first stop was to try and find where "locatable mineral" is used in actual legal text. Unfortunately the pdfs you provided previously aren't searchable, and some quick searching was relatively fruitless. I'll continue eating that elephant one bite at a time.

What I did find on Colorado's BLM page was a fairly broad definition that ostensibly includes mineral specimens:

The federal law governing locatable minerals is the General Mining Law of 1872 (May 10, 1872), which declared all valuable mineral deposits belonging to the United States ... to be free and open to citizens of the United States to explore for, discover, and purchase.

Mineral deposits subject to acquisition in this manner are generally referred to as “locatable minerals.” Locatable minerals include metallic minerals (gold, silver, lead, copper, zinc, nickel, etc.), nonmetallic minerals (fluorspar, mica, certain limestones and gypsum, tantalum, heavy minerals in placer form and gemstones) and certain uncommon variety minerals. It is very difficult to prepare a complete list of locatable minerals because the history of the law has resulted in a definition of minerals that includes economics.

While we're talking about meteorites in this thread, the term mineral specimens seemingly encompasses a wider-variety of types and origins, including gold and crystals as well as meteorites. This gives me an interesting homework assignment; when using "mineral specimen" are you referring chiefly to meteorites, or broader minerals such as smokey quartz, aquamarine, gold, silver, etc.?

I appreciate the food for thought!