Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
A few days ago I introduced the term stratigraphic discrimination to refer to selectively ignoring a particular layer or layers of ground.
There are times when you might be interested in only one or more layers. For example, if you are interested in old items at a land site, you might ignore surface targets. I mentioned the Surface Blanking feature of the Royal Sabre detector from the 1980s that provided a Surface Blanking function for that purpose. While I haven't seen a surface blanking setting on other metal detectors, many do give a depth reading.
There are times when you might choose to hunt only for surface targets, such as when you are hunting a specific item that was recently lost. In that case, you would ignore all of those more faint detector signals that night indicate a more deeply buried target.
On a beach the situation can be a little more complex due to the frequently shifting sands and changing of layers. On the Treasure Coast the brown/orange deeper sand is often associated with old shipwreck items, however the same old items can end up on or very near the surface.
These days a light-colored sand from recent renourishment projects is often seen covering the dunes and the beach. In most cases that sand is a bad sign, however there can be times when good old targets can end up laying on top of that sand. That can happen, even though it is not common.
In the past I would never ignore deep targets, or any target for that matter, but as you know, deep targets on a beach can be very difficult to recover, especially when near the water's edge, and sometimes you might not have time to spend on a target like that, especially when there are easier good targets.
People are usually very focused on deep targets on a shipwreck beach, but in my experience most of my shipwreck finds have not been real deep. In fact, many have been laying on or very near the surface. My usual strategy is to focus on those areas of the beach where coins and such things can be found very near the surface. I've mentioned before that I've eye-balled several reales over the years. They were just laying there to be easily seen. Hunting those types of areas is what reading a beach is all about.
There are times when I will try to get the very deepest targets and struggle to get the maximum depth out of a detector, but it is my opinion that the deepest targets represent a very small total value compared to the total value of near surface targets and take a disproportionate amount of time to find and recover. Still, if you have the time, there is no reason to leave anything.
I'm not saying that I never go for the very deepest of targets. There are times when I do, and when I do that I have some reason to believe that it will pay off. I have reason to believe that those targets could have a high value and there are not equally valuable targets in the area that can be recovered more quickly.
Let's say I have a good coin hole, and the top layers have produced some very nice targets and the signals are becoming more scarce and faint. Then I might change my settings and search techniques or even switch metal detectors that will be more effective on the deeper and fainter targets.
I often use one metal detector for general scanning, but will then switch detectors when I have reason. It is my opinion that constantly seeking the deepest and faintest targets is not efficient. That can be a poor use of your time. Techniques and strategies can be situational. That is why I often like to do a little scanning, which provides additional information on the situation.
If you want to do stratigraphic discrimination and use the depth readout to do it, you might want to test the depth meter on your metal detector to become more familiar with the peculiarities and how accurate it really is. That is something that I hope to test some day on the Equinox. Perhaps you will want to test your own depth meter and offer some of your observations.
I could at this point get into some details on the shifting layers of a beach, but that will have to wait for some other time.
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Here is the predicted surf from MagicSeaWeed.com.
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| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com. |
They are predicting some pretty high surf for later today and tomorrow. It has been pretty breezy lately, and we are supposed to have a very high tide today.
I'm curious to see what, if anything, will happen to the beaches.
You can't go home again because it never leaves you. TG.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net