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| Meteoritical Bulletin | |
|---|---|
| Title | Meteoritical Bulletin |
| Discipline | Planetary science |
| Language | English |
| Abbreviation | MB |
| Publisher | Meteoritical Society |
| Country | International |
| History | 1920s–present |
| Frequency | Irregular / cumulative |
Meteoritical Bulletin is a serial publication that records approved meteorite names and authoritative data for named specimens discovered worldwide. It serves as the primary registry used by agencies and institutions such as the International Astronomical Union, Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Museum, London, American Museum of Natural History, and Lunar and Planetary Institute for standardizing nomenclature and basic metadata. Researchers associated with NASA, European Space Agency, JAXA, Indian Space Research Organisation, and university departments including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Tokyo rely on it for cross-referencing fall and find records.
The bulletin traces its roots to early 20th-century cataloguing efforts by collectors and curators at institutions like the British Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, and the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien. During the interwar years figures linked to Harvard University, University of Chicago, Yale University, Imperial College London, and the Max Planck Society contributed to standardized lists that led to institutional endorsement by groups such as the Meteoritical Society and eventual coordination with the International Astronomical Union committees. Cold War-era exchanges among researchers in the Soviet Union, United States, Japan, France, Germany, and Australia expanded the scope to Antarctica and desert recovery programs associated with the United States Antarctic Program and Australian Antarctic Division. Key milestones involved collaborative meetings at venues including Smithsonian Institution symposia, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference sessions, and working groups convened by the International Geophysical Year legacy committees.
Issues historically appeared as printed notices distributed by societies and museums such as the Meteoritical Society, Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Museum, London, and the Royal Society. Later electronic dissemination aligned with databases maintained by organizations like the NASA Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office, Planetary Data System, European Space Agency archives, and university repositories at Caltech and MIT. Entries typically include metadata fields familiar to curators at American Museum of Natural History, Field Museum of Natural History, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and regional collections like the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales and National Museum of Natural History, Paris. Formats evolved to interoperable standards adopted by institutions including DataCite, Digital Object Identifier registries, and cataloguers at the Library of Congress and the British Library.
The bulletin records approved names, geographic coordinates, classification data, and petrographic summaries used by petrographers at Carnegie Institution for Science, cosmochemists at Caltech, MIT, and isotope laboratories at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It adopts taxonomies comparable to schemes used by the International Astronomical Union Commission working groups, incorporating class labels familiar to curators from Natural History Museum, Vienna, analytical groups at Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, and investigators associated with Harvard University and University of New Mexico. Entries reference finds from notable localities such as Allende (meteorite), Hoba, Murchison, Tagish Lake, NWA 7034, Campo del Cielo, Sikhote-Alin, Chelyabinsk (meteorite), and Antarctic stations coordinated by Antarctic Treaty signatories.
Editorial oversight is exercised by committees drawn from the Meteoritical Society, specialists affiliated with institutions including Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Museum, London, University of Arizona, Brown University, and representatives from national agencies such as NASA and CNES. Nomenclature proposals submitted by field collectors, curators, and researchers at organizations like the Planetary Science Institute undergo review procedures similar to those practised in committees of the International Astronomical Union and scholarly societies such as the Geological Society of America and American Geophysical Union. Governance includes conflict-of-interest policies aligned with standards used by funding bodies like the National Science Foundation and ethics committees at universities such as Stanford University and University of Cambridge.
The bulletin underpins systematic studies by cosmochemists at Caltech and MIT, isotope geochemists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of California, Berkeley, and planetary petrologists at Lunar and Planetary Institute and Brown University. Museums including the Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Museum, London, Field Museum, and American Museum of Natural History use its entries for cataloguing, loans, and exhibition labels. Researchers publishing in journals such as Nature, Science, Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, and Journal of Geophysical Research reference it for provenance validation, while agencies like NASA and ESA use it in mission curation protocols and sample-return planning.
Distribution channels include print bulletins historically issued by the Meteoritical Society and electronic dissemination integrated with data services run by the NASA Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office, university libraries at Caltech and MIT, and aggregators used by curators at the Natural History Museum, London and the Smithsonian Institution. Access is adopted by national collections such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Field Museum, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, and regional repositories managed by the Australian Museum and Canadian Museum of Nature. Archival and search services mirror practices employed by institutions like the Library of Congress and British Library for scholarly registries.
Category:Meteorites Category:Scientific registries