Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Here is the link to the new auction catalog.
http://www.sedwickcoins.com/ta22/catalog.htm
There are some nice bids already.
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The other day I mentioned a few older finds I made in renourishment sand. Joe D. wrote in about metal detecting renourishment sand. Here is what he had to say.
I'm glad you brought up the subject of how important the original location of the renourshment sand source is when surveying beach locations to detect, since that is what many of us end up detecting when there is little erosion going on.
I wanted to give you a few examples of the locations of the last several I've had knowledge of and detected often as they were put down and subsequently eroded out.
The most recent of which was the beach South of Jupiter inlet, from the inlet to the end of the public beach. The sand source was a little inside the inlet in front of Dubois Park. An area with quite a bit of history, but not the original inlet location, which was a little south. Nevertheless, my thinking was that it might turn up some good stuff if it was not overly filtered for size; which I believe it was based on the composition after the fact. I have found nothing old or fossilized in this stuff, which looks more like shell rock than beach sand, and barely moved at all compared to the regular beach sand from when Irma came through.
On another renourshment project in the South end of Palm Beach a year or so ago, they dredged from offshore about a quarter of a mile and were nice enough to dump the larger filtered items in a nice pile in Phipps Park for a couple of months. It was all shells and rocks and anything of size that didn't meet the sand size specs. I found many piece's of copper sheathing and several brass spikes over that period. And there were many shell collectors there all the time.
Another two renourshment projects in Palm Beach at the main beach were not productive. The most recent came from directly off shore, which is now gone. And the one before that was trucked in from a sand pit on the other side of Lake Okeechobee! They, and us, paid big bucks for that one, only to watch it wash away in a year or so.
One of the most important things I learned about this process is that the sand is filtered for grain size, and I guess, secondly if at all, is quality of sand, which probably differs from each location based on the governing body, and how much it will cost, and how much the state will cover. If you can find out or get access to the filtered material before it is hauled away, that is where a lot of the good stuff is.
If you have anymore knowledge to add, it would be interesting to hear of any other observations besides my own.
Thanks. Joe D.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Joe. I hope others will as well.
Joe brings out some important factors: the source of the sand and the filtering.
Just a few days ago I mentioned how I found a WW II cap badge in renourishment sand just south of the Fort Pierce inlet. That wasn't from the most recent renourishment project. It was one or two projects before that, but the point is that good old stuff can be dumped on a beach with renourishment sand. At that time, there was also a bunch of garbage in the renourishment sand, including a lot of mangled aluminum cans. They didn't bother to filter a lot of the garbage out that time.
Renourishment sand can be tricky. There can be a variety of layers form different times that get mixed together in no discernible order.
There is one place on the Treasure Coast where new sand was dumped a year or two ago. It is a fine white sand, and near the dunes they planted sea oats in it. Under that sand is a thick layer of sand from fifty or more years earlier that was dug from in front of the beach and dumped on the dunes and beach. That time they dug down through sand that is recent and down through sand that contained millions of years old fossils. When it was dumped on the beach, it was not dumped in order, but spread out so that Styrofoam cups and plastic garbage bags were mixed together with ancient fossils. Despite the mixing you can easily tell the difference between this sand with older items spread through it and the most recent renourishment sand. The point being that renourishment sand can be either homogeneous or a varied mixture.
A breathtaking hoard of ancient Roman bronze artifacts, described as the first of its kind in British history, has been unearthed by a pair of metal detector enthusiasts.
The 4th century hoard found by Pete Cresswell and his brother-in-law Andrew Boughton in Gloucestershire includes a sculpture of a "licking" dog never found before in the UK.
The licking dog is an example of a healing statue, and may be linked to a Roman healing temple at Lydney, near the Forest of Dean...
Here is the link for the rest of that story.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Joe. I hope others will as well.
Joe brings out some important factors: the source of the sand and the filtering.
Just a few days ago I mentioned how I found a WW II cap badge in renourishment sand just south of the Fort Pierce inlet. That wasn't from the most recent renourishment project. It was one or two projects before that, but the point is that good old stuff can be dumped on a beach with renourishment sand. At that time, there was also a bunch of garbage in the renourishment sand, including a lot of mangled aluminum cans. They didn't bother to filter a lot of the garbage out that time.
Renourishment sand can be tricky. There can be a variety of layers form different times that get mixed together in no discernible order.
There is one place on the Treasure Coast where new sand was dumped a year or two ago. It is a fine white sand, and near the dunes they planted sea oats in it. Under that sand is a thick layer of sand from fifty or more years earlier that was dug from in front of the beach and dumped on the dunes and beach. That time they dug down through sand that is recent and down through sand that contained millions of years old fossils. When it was dumped on the beach, it was not dumped in order, but spread out so that Styrofoam cups and plastic garbage bags were mixed together with ancient fossils. Despite the mixing you can easily tell the difference between this sand with older items spread through it and the most recent renourishment sand. The point being that renourishment sand can be either homogeneous or a varied mixture.
I tend to do a little sampling of any renourishment sand to see what might be in it.
Observe the different types of sand that you can see on a beach. If you carefully observe the sand, you'll be able to see how it is moving.
Notice when different layers are exposed. Different layers can be associated with different types and ages of finds. The sand can tell you a lot about where you should spend your time.
Tell me about your finds and experiences with detecting in renourishment sand.
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A breathtaking hoard of ancient Roman bronze artifacts, described as the first of its kind in British history, has been unearthed by a pair of metal detector enthusiasts.
The 4th century hoard found by Pete Cresswell and his brother-in-law Andrew Boughton in Gloucestershire includes a sculpture of a "licking" dog never found before in the UK.
The licking dog is an example of a healing statue, and may be linked to a Roman healing temple at Lydney, near the Forest of Dean...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/27/roman-licking-dog-never-seen-britain-found-metal-detector-enthusiasts/
Thanks to Dean for that link.
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There will be a nice high tide today. The surf will be decreasing a foot or two. The wind will be shifting to a more southerly direction.
Looks like Nate will be a hurricane, but won't affect us in any significant way.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
Looks like Nate will be a hurricane, but won't affect us in any significant way.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
