5/22/15 Report - Preserving Mining, Prospecting and Outdoor Recreation on Public Lands. Prehistoric Casino. Beach Erosion & Refilling.

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

In the last few days I've received emails from different parts of the country including places as far apart as New York and California.

I  heard from a fellow that operates an organization that does the kind of work that is much needed.  The organization is called Public Lands for the People.  He didn't ask me for publicity, but I don't mind giving it.  I'd like to make sure our public lands are open for prospecting, mining and other outdoor recreation including metal detecting.

The organization received a treasure coin that they are going to auction and what he asked about was getting the coin authenticated.

You might want to take a look at the PLP web site.  Here is the link.

http://www.publiclandsforthepeople.org/public-lands-for-the-people-going-viral/

Sharon P. found what appears to be an antique fire hose nozzle. She did a lot of digging to get it.

Can anyone tell us if it is antique?

Find and photo by Sharon P.

She said she went back to the beginning of this blog and started reading through it.  Others have told me they are doing the same thing.  Nice find Sharon!

---

Prehistoric casino?

A cave on the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake is giving archaeologists a rare glimpse into a seldom-studied aspect of life in the ancient West — prehistoric gambling.

Researchers exploring the cave, known simply as Cave 1, have identified hundreds of dice, hoops, carved sticks and other trinkets used in indigenous games of chance and skill.

Based on what they’ve found so far, they project that there are more than 10,000 such items still waiting to be uncovered, making it likely the largest deposit of ancient gambling artifacts ever found in the western U.S.

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

http://westerndigs.org/dice-gaming-utah-cave-prehistoric-gambling/

---

Not too long ago I found an erode dune that had released a lot of coins onto the beach front.  The coins extended from the base of  the cut and down into the shallow water.  In the drawing the red indicates where the coins were on the sloped beach.

One day I returned to the same beach and it appeared that the water was lower.  It wasn't.  Instead of the water being lower the beach was higher.  The cut had filled in to a large extent.

The only objects that I found after the beach refilled were along the very base of the cut.  (Small red line.)  Those targets fell out of the face of the cliff after the beach had refilled, so they were found on top of the new sand.

That kind of erosion and refilling occurs over and over again.  Keep a mental record of the different levels of the beach as they occur.

As I've said before, stumps and rocks and other relatively stationary objects can help you gauge the coming and going of sand.

----

We've been having a one to two foot surf along the Treasure Coast.  The surf was very comfortable this morning near low tide.  Very easy water detecting, even if not good detecting conditions.  Both the beach and shallow water is sandy.

This weekend will be a busy beach weekend with the holiday on Monday.

The surf will increase slightly this weekend, and next weekend we'll have something more like a three to five foot surf for a few days.

That won't change beach conditions much, but even a slight shifting of sand will be welcome.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net