Importance
The quality to be an "observed fall", makes these meteorites relevant for several reasons.
First of all these meteorites can be used to make statistics about the abundance of the different kinds of meteorites that fall on the Earth without any bias from weathering and from easiness of identification. For example iron meteorites last longer to weathering and are easier to identify as "strange" stones: for this reason the ratio of iron meteorites among (approved, non Antarctic) finds (6.7%) is different from the ratio among observed falls (4.4%).
Falls are also fresher (low weathered, well preserved material) and are therefore more interesting to scientists. Historically they were also the most important proof to understand and accept the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites.
Read more about this topic: Meteorite Fall
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“Any novel of importance has a purpose. If only the “purpose” be large enough, and not at outs with the passional inspiration.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The importance of a lost romantic vision should not be underestimated. In such a vision is power as well as joy. In it is meaning. Life is flat, barren, zestless, if one can find one’s lost vision nowhere.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 19 (1962)