San Diego

Meteorites have become prime targets for high-end curio dealers, reaching as much as US$10,000 a gram at auction. Professional scavengers have reacted with a flood of space rocks, forcing scientists to take radical steps and set up a centre at the University of Arizona that will buy samples on the open market.

Pebble dash: collectors race to pay stratospheric sums for meteorites like this. Credit: E. ENGELER/AP

“We don't want to shut down the trade in meteorites, because we can't,” says cosmo-chemist Dante Lauretta of the university's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. But the aim is to preserve as many of the finds as possible for scientific analysis, he says.

Meteorites made of material ejected from the Moon and Mars command the highest prices. But their popularity is pushing up the cost of all meteorites — including those known as chondrites, which are highly prized by scientists because they formed early enough to offer insight into the origins of the Solar System.

Over the past decade or so, the promise of bounty has spurred meteorite hunters to scour areas such as the Sahara Desert, the Gobi Desert and Patagonia, where arid conditions preserve specimens for millions of years.

Historically, scientists at a number of institutions, including the University of Arizona, have analysed material for collectors or dealers — in return receiving a portion of the meteorite for scientific study. “But there are so many meteorites coming out of the Sahara now that scientific institutions are overwhelmed,” says Lauretta. “It would take us two years to analyse everything we have.”

So he and his colleagues have set up the Southwest Meteorite Center to buy samples of meteorites before they are divided up and disappear unrecorded into private collections.

With an initial fund of about $200,000, the centre will buy meteorites wherever it can, as well as continuing to analyse rocks for dealers in return for samples. The researchers began the search for samples on 4 February at a meteorite auction held ahead of the annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, where the world's major players wheel and deal. “It was quite an adventure,” said Lauretta, after appealing to a packed house of about 250 dealers and well-heeled customers. “We were very well received.”

The top sale of the day was $6,750 for a newly discovered 11-kilogram piece of the Brenham pallasite. This famous meteorite, which consists of olivine crystals in an iron–nickel matrix, struck Kansas in 1882.

The centre will also buy collections from private individuals, and is raising funds to create an endowment for future purchases. The samples will be stored in a climate-controlled facility and made available to scientists who want to study them.

Long-time meteorite dealer Marvin Killgore of Payson, Arizona, will curate the repository. He has lent it a significant portion of his personal collection, which consists of 3,300 kg of meteorites from 37 countries.