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	Newest Mars Rock Sold for Big Bucks, Saved for Science By Greg Clark Staff Writer posted: 05:38 am ET 30 April 2000

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A piece of the Los Angeles meteorite -- the 15th meteorite known to have originated on the surface of Mars -- has been sold for a price one of the buyers describes as "well into six figures." Although the deal put the bulk of the highly sought rock in the hands of two professional meteorite dealers, those dealers have been working to distribute most of the material to museums and institutions around the world for scientific study.

The rock, known officially as LA 001, was one of two martian meteorites discovered last winter by amateur rock collector Robert Verish as he thinned his backyard stash of stones that he had picked up during 20 years of hiking in California deserts.

The pair of small dark rocks became the world's most coveted space rocks when meteorite experts at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) confirmed in December that the two were pieces of an errant chunk of the Red Planet that had made its way to Earth.

"I've found one of the most expensive and most important meteorites in the U.S. and if I can donate a piece, I think everyone else can."

Within weeks of the discovery becoming public, meteorite collectors were privately speculating about the wildly high prices that the rocks could demand on the open market. Word in February at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in Tucson, Arizona -- where Verish traveled to show the meteorites to dealers and collectors -- was that the rocks could fetch at least half a million dollars. Although neither Verish nor the two meteorite dealers who teamed up to purchase LA 001 would reveal the exact price, they said that it did not reach that figure.

In the end, Verish's commitment to science and education prevailed over the temptation to sell it to the highest bidder, he said. He settled on making a deal with New York meteorite dealer Michael Casper and another dealer, Darryl Pitt, who partnered for this purchase. The two agreed not to compete for the Los Angeles meteorite, but to buy it together and subdivide the sample.

"Mike Casper conveyed to me as much interest in getting the stone divided and into various institutions as I did," Verish said. "So it just sort of fell in place that he was the person who ended up getting it and dividing it and then distributing it. And he did an excellent job of doing that."

Within a few days of buying the bulk of LA 001 back in February, Casper had made exchanges with Arizona State University, the Museum of Natural History in New York City and fellow meteorite collector and dealer Robert Haag.

"It's too rare and too scientifically important to let it go just to collectors at large. It should go to the researchers," Casper said.

Samples of Mars on Earth

As one of the small handful of martian rocks that have been found on Earth, the meteorite is invaluable to scientists. No space mission has yet brought samples of Mars back to Earth, and even in the most aggressive and optimistic Mars-exploration scenarios, a spacecraft won't return samples from the planet for at least a decade. Scientists, therefore, rely on meteorites to learn about the geologic history of Mars and the other bodies in the solar system.

By performing chemical analysis on a meteorite, scientists can determine a wealth of information about its parent body, its age and the geological processes that formed it. They can tell how long a space rock has been on Earth, how much time it spent tumbling through space and how long ago it formed.

Carleton Moore, director of the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University, was the first to get a piece of LA 001 from Casper. The center distributes pieces of meteorites to scientists who submit sound research proposals.

Moore sent a few grams to scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center, which boasts one of the world's most sophisticated laboratories for analyzing meteorite material. Scientists there have performed an array of different tests on the piece to determine its age, where on Mars it originated and how long it might have been in space. The results of those tests have not yet been released because scientists are still analyzing data, said Larry Nyquist, a NASA geochemist who has run tests to determine the age of the martian rock.

Those results should be published within the next few months, Nyquist said.

Saved in the name of science

With the exception of the piece Casper traded with Haag for a slice of lunar meteorite found in Calcalong Creek, Australia, the rest of LA 001 is going to scientific and public collections, Casper said. Part of his deal stipulated that Haag would keep his piece intact, for display and educational purposes, Casper said. Just after picking up the piece from Verish in Los Angeles, Casper visited Haag at his home in Tucson.

"Casper walked in the door and said, 'Ta da, look at this!' We cut it here, we cut the whole thing right here," Haag said. "I was able to cut off a nice slice of my moon rock, Calcalong Creek, -- which nobody could buy because I have all of it -- and was able to trade a moon rock for a nice slice of Mars rock."

A legend in the business, Haag has been collecting meteorites for more than two decades, and is undoubtedly the person most responsible for turning meteorite collecting from a fringe hobby into an international business.

In fact, Haag inspired Casper (and most other serious meteorite collectors) to enter the meteorite business. Casper now does more $1 million worth of business in meteorites each year, he says, through mail order and from his showroom in Ithaca, New York.

Once he and Haag subdivided LA 001, Casper went on to distribute the pieces to museums and scientific institutions, and he delivered 5.5 ounces (160 grams) of the material to New York City meteorite-dealer Darryl Pitt.

Pitt said he is now in advanced stages of negotiations for trades with three institutions that he would not name. He said he also plans to offer a small sample at auction at a later date, but that 95 percent of the material would end up in different museums and research institutions, as stipulated in the agreement with Robert Verish.

Exchanging the highly sought specimen with public institutions that want the rock for science is a way for the dealers to help researchers, earn a measure of good will from them and get other valuable meteorite specimens that have already been thoroughly studied by scientists.

"I, for example, would become a pariah if I just made it available in the commercial market," Pitt said. "But that's not my motivation. My motivation is to further along the science of these objects. It's the science that's the seed, the core, of my inspiration. And so it's important that it fall into the hands of those who can study it."

Setting rules for meteorite finders by example

Both Casper and Pitt say the exchanges have been worthwhile, for business as well as science.

The finder, Robert Verish, is also pleased. "It looked like everyone benefited in the process -- that there was no need for institutions to have to try to drum up a bunch of money to try to buy something," he said.

But Verish didn't leave all the distribution work to Casper. He donated his share of LA 001 before selling the remainder to Casper. Verish gave just more than 1 ounce (30 grams) to the UCLA laboratory that first analyzed the meteorite, and he has saved a piece to give to the Smithsonian Institution.

"The Smithsonian is the actual permanent repository, and I feel I should lead by example here and show that they should be getting a donation -- a sample that can always be available," Verish said.

Such a gesture might send a message to others who find important meteorites, he hopes. "I would just want to lead by example in that regard to say, 'Hey, I've found one of the most expensive and most important meteorites in the U.S. and if I can donate a piece, I think everyone else can.' "

Another significant gesture is what Verish has done with his second Mars rock, LA 002. He loaned that piece -- an 8.5-ounce (245-gram) cone-shaped chunk that fits nicely in the palm of a hand -- to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. It is now on display as the centerpiece of a meteorite exhibit that will continue through August 13.

"The one in the museum is such a nice-looking meteorite, we're kind of interested in not having to break that down or cut that any further. We'd like to keep that whole," Verish said. "The idea was for educational purposes and to give an opportunity for the people in Los Angeles and L.A. county to see their meteorite."