9/5/18 Report - Bigger Surf Coming. Gordon Hits Mississippi. Florence Headed Towards Bermuda. Mystery Find Identified.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Found on Beach by Alberto S.

I often say you can find anything and everything on a beach.  The items shown above were recently found by Alberto S.  Do you know what they are?   I'll tell you later.

Here is how Alberto described this find.

I am attaching a couple of images hoping you may have the time to view and comment. The image with the green capsule - I do not have a clue as to what this is for.  It's about an inch long and inside are a couple of tiny pouches with a silver looking liquid and a small black bead or something like that.  It was a surface find.

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Brian B. had the following to say about the beaches up in the Flagler area.

... I think you were smart hitting the inland over the year as the sand has been rebuilding since Jan 5 this year in Flagler when the N Easter hit along our coast. 25 million dune restoration has been underway since Feb with a mile a month getting new sand from some 50 miles away and trucked in. While it's white fine sand and does not match the existing it was DEP approved and even though it won't hold together like existing sand, it seems that DEP doesn't care just so it's a sand of their approval. Thanks

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And DB said, I read the report today and saw you haven't been up north any. Vero and north are all sanded in as well.

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Thanks for sharing Alberto, Brian and DB!

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Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall around Mississippi, and Hurricane Florence is headed towards Bermuda.

Hurricane Florence.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov

For the Treasure Coast, the one to watch is the undeveloped system behind Florence.  It is still far away.

This weekend the surf will increase.  Here is how MagicSeaWeed shows it

I don't believe we've had four to six feet all summer - at least not sustained for any length of time.  Looks like summer is about over.

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About the mystery find shown at the top of the page - here it is.

It is a dental amalgam kit containing 600 mg of mercury and 600 mg of alloy.

Here is some information added by Alberto.

There's no secret reason NIST (and partners like the Environmental Protection Agency and United Nations) have pushed scientists away from mercury. It's a neurotoxin—exposure can cause tremors, partial blindness, deafness, memory loss, and many, many other problems—and, if mercury does spill, it's very hard to clean up. But toxicologists have known these facts for ages—what took so long? Inertia, partly. People grew up using mercury thermometers, and damn it, they want to keep using them. But mercury thermometers also have real advantages over the alternatives. 

So I went looking for amalgam and found this:

Potential Risks: Dental amalgam contains elemental mercury. It releases low levels of mercury in the form of a vapor that can be inhaled and absorbed by the lungs. ... Based on this evidence, FDA considers dental amalgam fillings safe for adults and children ages 6 and above.Dec 5, 2017 

He then wondered, as you might expect, how it ended up on the beach.

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Concerning mercury, below is what Carla Phillips says in her book Six Galleons for the King of Spain.

... The galleons often carried mercury on the outbound voyages, because it was a crucial part silver refining in the New World.  Once the mercury arrived in Cadiz, special containers had to be built to protect it form dampness, and that could take considerable time.  Altogether, some 198 toneladas would be sent in 1632, both to New Spain and to Tierra Firma for transshipment to Peru.  Although Oquendo was no e too pleased with the extra trouble caused by the mercury, after several years of uncertain fleets the New World mines were desperate for it.  The fleet also carried muskets and harquebuses, gathered from all over Andalusia, for transsihpment to Peru...

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net


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9/3/17 Report - Following Hurricane Irma. Comparative Corrosion of Silver Dimes. Metal Detector Repair Issues. A Few Items That Might Come In Handy When Metal Detecting

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

The main thing I'm paying attention to is Irma.  As you can see from the above surf predictions, a 14 to 22 foot surf is expected for next Sunday.  That is certainly the biggest surf we've seen on the Treasure Coast for quite some time.

I've been watching the National Hurricane Center web site as well as the Ventusky and Windyty.com weather sites.  From what I'm seeing on all of them, the projected path of Irma is creeping a little closer to the Florida Coast and the Treasure Coast.  A day or two ago, it looked like it was going just a little more to the east of the Bahamas.  Now it is over some of the Bahama islands.  But that is only an early look, and the cone of uncertainty is wide.  

There is another system following right behind Irma and one forming down in the Gulf of Mexico.  I'm hoping the one in the Gulf, which does look like it will head towards Texas, fizzles out without dumping any more rain on them.

We still have nearly a week to watch how Irma is going to go.  I'd really like to see it turn more to the north.

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Badly Corroded Roosevelt and Mercury Beach Dimes

Although both are badly corroded silver dimes, the Roosevelt dime, the youngest of the two, is the most corroded.

This is an illustration of how silver corrodes on a beach over time and the imperfect correlation of age and corrosion.  The specific circumstances have a lot to do with the amount of corrosion.

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GoldNugget of North Carolina sent his Exclibur 200 to KellyCo Detectors for repairs months ago. He said it has been there since June 15 of 2017.  After much frustration and delay, he contacted Minelab U S A, and they said they will contact Kellyco next week to see what the problem is.  That kind of delay is intolerable.  From my recent poll, I know that a large number of my readers use Minelab detectors. You don't want to be waiting for months to get your metal detector repaired.  I hope GoldNugget keeps me informed of any developments so I can let you know what is happening.

I had a similar problem with Kellyco a few years ago. It concerned a Minelab detector too.  As I recall it was a new detector.  After failing to get any kind of satisfactory response to my inquiries, I drove up to Orlando and got a replacement detector right away.  That should not have been necessary.

While I'm on the subject of metal detector repairs, my worst experience was with Tesoro.  I owned two Tesoro detectors.  My problem with Tesoro is that they advertise a lifetime warranty, yet when each of my two older detectors needed repairs, they wouldn't honor the warranty because they claimed the detectors were obsolete.  People with newer Tesoro detectors reportedly receive good service, but a lifetime warranty should be a lifetime warranty, not an advertising gimmick.

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I don't like to take unnecessary equipment when I detect. I like to travel light, so sometimes I don't have everything I need.  Sometimes you can return later with the right equipment, but that doesn't always work.  It surprises me how long some targets remain in place on heavily hunted beaches.

Here are a few extra things that can come in handy at the beach. I won't mention such obvious things as batteries or a spare detector.

I seldom take a shovel, but sometimes a shovel is needed for those deep difficult to dig targets. It is surprising how long deep targets will often stay on a beach. Some remain in place for years. I know of some right now that were just beyond what I'm typically willing to dig that have been in place for months. Eventually I'll go equipped for digging deeper targets and remove them.  I'll do that sort of thing when there aren't many people around. I removed one of those big deep targets on my last outing. It had been there for at least two months.

Binoculars can also be very helpful, although I usually don't take them. They can save a lot of walking. Binoculars will give you a good look at a distant part of the beach without having to walk there.

A back-pack or large heavy duty bag can come in handy too. Bigger finds won't fit in your pocket. There have been times when I found plastic bags on a beach to carry away unexpected finds like antique bottles or larger fossils. Plastic bags don't work well for heavy or sharp objects and a plastic bag will tear.  A heavy duty large canvas bag can be very handy.

There are also times when a screen or sifter will come in handy. Lets say you run into a broken necklace of gold beads. It can be quicker and easier to screen them than find them individually. I've wasted a lot of time trying to find a single small gold bead even after I threw it on my coil with a handful sand.

A good magnet can come in handy when you are working a beach that has a lot of iron.  A magnet on short pole or mounted in your scoop will pick up pieces of iron very quickly.

Those are a few things that come to mind.  For land hunting, there is another list of items that I might talk about some other time.

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This was declared to be a National Day of Prayer to pray for those affected by Harvey.

Wasn't it nice to see people helping people with very little looting.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net