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All, I received this email from a new meteorite collector who gave me permission to share it with you: "To: magellon Hi, I liked your info on Meteorwrongs . Very interesting. I did purchase two small and very interesting Eagle Buttes for a total of $20. These are without any doubt slag. When I contacted the seller he put up a huge fuss saying that they are indeed meteorites and I was wrong. I pushed for a refund and he told me he would refund minus shipping and that they better be exactly as he shipped them or a refund would be denied. He said he has very detailed photos of each piece 'for insurance purposes'. I am certain he will not be refunding my money because they will mysteriously show up damaged even though they are well packaged. I checked his feedback and several people have bought these. The way he has them pictured on his auction made it difficult to see the foam and air bubbles which would make anyone suspicious. You can thank guys like these for turning away new collectors. Collector from TX". (name removed by request) Well at least there are no more listings of EB's on eBay! Congrats to IMCA members and others who spoke up. Best, Ken Newton #9632
Hello all Is arrive this email in my excite.it mailbox from Paleo Guy, take a look: I sent this message to your other e-mail address, but have yet to receive a reply. I am hoping it reached you, but if not here it is again. Also in your response to your recent letters to my husbands address, I asure you that it was neither him nor I who sent you those vulgar messages and we would appreciate if you could please keep your future correspondance with us a little cleaner as we have no intentions of causing a disturbance. Thank you Tammy Crawford Dear Matteo, My heartfelt apologies to you for the crude emails you received from my former address, as well as the time it has taken me to write this letter explaining what's been happening over the past week. I regret that the disturbed individual that sent these harsh and disgusting (not to mention poorly laid out) emails was a very mouthy teen who thought it might be funny to stomp all over my identity, NOT a professor, or trustee at a museum, or whatever other lies she conjured up to make this horrible mess that I am only beginning to clean up. To begin with, the reason for the new email address is because of the threatening letters I found on my computer when I returned home from the hospital. I cannot recall every letter that was sent and received as I promptly deleted every one and the contacts that pertained to them, but I do remember the harsh tone and the disgusting language, and I once again make an enormous apology. Thankfully, the former address had just been added to our new laptop and it wasn't that much of an inconvenience to change. My husband (alias geopaleo guy) was only aware that a bid had been placed on one of his items on ebay from my former address (which was to his surprise as I was not home) and later found that it had been placed by the aforementioned teen (whom I have pleasure of calling my cousin). She had been staying at our house in order to help my husband out with the children while I was away and I gave her full permission to use our laptop, big mistake. She thought it would be a big joke to place a bid on one of his items, he told her not to do it again and cancelled the bid. Shortly after when she read the email you sent, she apparently became furious, and using my identity decided to cause some waves. As she received more emails she created more waves and that is how we get to the point when my address changed. I made the change the moment I saw the letters, and deleted every one of them, then I banned my cousin from my house telling her to get help. Since then, my husband has been receiving all sorts of interesting emails from individuals on your mailing list. He's been deleting them as he does not know what to say to make it up to anyone that has been affected by this ordeal. I don't blame him. If there is anything I've left out, or haven't explained, or if you have any questions regarding this matter please feel free to contact me and I'll try to sort things out. Once again I apologize and I hope there hasn't been too much of an inconvenience. Sincerely, The Real, Tammy Crawford (not Schimpf) what seems you? Regards Matteo
<< If there is anything I've left out, or haven't explained, or if you have any questions regarding this matter please feel free to contact me and I'll try to sort things out. >> Could be true, could be a convoluted excuse with as much veracity to it as the "Eagle Butte" meteorite. If it were me, I would write this seller the following: "There IS one thing you have left out, and that has to do with the reason the whole stupid issue arose in the first place. This is not a meteorite, should never again be sold as one, and all specimens previously, fraudulently sold as a meteorite should be refunded." If and when the seller shows willingness to << sort things out >> by doing THAT, we can tag this toe and slam the drawer shut. Gregory
This is the text of an email message I sent to the Crawfords, the people who are selling the Eagle Butte meteorites. We'll see what their response might be. Tracy Latimer ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 20:26:55 +0000 To: ktac at telusplanet.net Subject: Re: Eagle Butte Iron Meteorite Item # 1066468831 I just got the Eagle Butte sample last week, thanks to the vagaries of mailing across international borders. Unfortunately, to my eye, it seems you may have been fooled in your collecting by industrial slag, as the piece you sent me does not resemble any of my other iron meteorites, but it DOES resemble a slag meteorwrong I picked up in Ohio. I have also heard from people with whom I correspond on a meteorite newsgroup; several of them have also bought these meteorites and feel their identity is questionable. I cannot comfortably post feedback without being sure of what I have bought, so I am sending the sample to Dr. Carleton Moore at the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University for analysis. Upon his confirmation, I will happily post positive feedback. If the sample should turn out NOT to be a meteorite, I will forego any negative comment should you choose to offer a refund to anyone who has bought an "Eagle Butte Meteorite" from you in error. I am sorry to have to be so cautious, but there seems to be brisk trade in rocks of mistaken identity. Sincerely, Tracy Latimer
List: From a customer we received a sample of the material recently referred to and discussed on this list as Eagle Butte. Sample chemical analysis summary: The received material is porous and not homogeneous. There are varying proportions of FeO, MgO, Ca, Al, and Dolomite within "clumps". The terms "clast" and "breccias" are not used to define these concentrations as the boundaries are poorly defined. We found no detectable Ni. In our opinion this is ferrous slag similar to the iron slag used for road bases. (actually Canada is an important source of ferrous slag accounting for about 26% of USA imported needs) Bernd Pauli wrote: "Unfortunately there is no crater information in the 5th issue of the Catalogue. Those among us who still have access to the BBB (the Big Blue Book = 4th edition of the Catalogue) know that Eagle Butte is mentioned as a doubtful feature: A disturbed area, 10 km in diameter and 30-40 million years old, may be meteoritic, P.B. Robertson and R.A.F. Grieve, Journ. Roy. Astron. Soc. Canada, 1975, vol. 69, p. 1, but compare T.B. Haites and H. van Hees, Journ. Alberta Soc. Petrol. Geologists, 1962, vol. 10, p. 511. Bore holes and electric log data for the structure, H.B. Sawatzky in, Impact and Explosion Cratering, eds. D.J. Roddy, R.O. Pepin and R.B. Merrill, Pergamon Press (New York), 1977, p. 461." To Bernd's contribution I would add the work of Hodge and Sawatzky: "Eagle Butte, Alberta Lat/Long: N49 deg. 42', W110 deg. 30' Diameter: 19 km Age <65 Ma Condition: Eroded" "Eagle Butte is in the Cypress Hills area of southern Alberta (Canada). Cypress Hills Provincial Park occupies part of the eastern portion of the structure. The structure was recognized as a geophysical anomaly long before it was found to be an impact feature. Both surface geology and sub-surface information from wells support its identification as such." "The geophysical contours show a central uplift and a surrounding ring depression." "Meteorite Craters and Impact Structures of the Earth", Hodge, Paul, 1994, University of Cambridge Press. And "Two probable Late Cretaceous astroblemes in Western Canada: Eagle Butte, Alberta and Dumas, Saskatchewan". Geophysics, 41, 1261 - 1271" Is there existing meteoritic material associated with the Eagle Butte structure? I don't know. All that I can say for sure is that the material we received is not meteoritic. A word of caution: Some of the longer-term members of the List may remember our involvement with material that came to be referred to as the "Emerald Meteorite". (summary story about the "Emerald Meteorite", for those unfamiliar with it is at: http://www2.suite224.net/~editorsb/updates/meteorite.htm ) Our chemical analysis showed it to be a foundry by-product, probably from the lining of a refractory kiln and not meteoritic. Some members may still have samples of this material in their collections. Legal consequences resulting from this were unpleasant. Fortunately Tim McCoy's (Smithsonian) independent analysis concurred with ours and the finders/promoters backed off. My point ( something I'm sure that many List members have experienced) is that it is sometimes very, very, difficult to convince someone untrained or unfamiliar with meteoritics that what they have is of terrestrial occurrence. If they choose a legal path it can become costly and uncomfortable for all. I find it far better in these circumstances, that when asked, to offer an "opinion" on the material rather than to speak in "absolutes" that may be heard as a denouncement. Everyone has an opinion but denouncements can get you sued. Of course, this is just my "opinion". Russ K./NEMS
Since Anne has noted the list is quiet.... :-) I just got my sample back from ASU, and the verdict is that it is indeed slag, like anyone is surprised. Kudos to them for a speedy analysis, and I'm really sorry to have wasted their time with something I was 99% sure was junk, but thank you for the reverification. Time to say bad things to geopaleo_guy. Tracy Latimer --"You may fire when ready." Grand Moff Tarkin--