Writtten by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com
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| One Treasure Coast Beach This Morning. |
The beach shown above is very mushy. You can see the waves breaking right at the base of the beach. The slope is fairly steep, ever so slightly scalloped and mushy. Not good detecting conditions.
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| Another Beach At Low Tide Yesterday. |
I saw another beach this morning that was very much like this one.
There were few targets where I did a little detecting this morning. There were some though, although it took me a while to find them.
I started off by checking the two hot spots that usually produce good targets on that beach. There was nothing at those two spots. My guess is that the regulars hit those spots this weekend.
I quickly shifted to a very loose scan pattern to see if I could find some better spots to hunt. I would often use a zig-zag pattern in a situation like that. Today I checked down by the waterline first. Nothing good there. Then I checked higher on the beach. Nothing there either.
It didn't look like it was worth spending much time either high or low, so then I checked the middle of the slope. Bingo. First a dime. Then a quarter, etc.
There was a coin line. It was a very narrow straight coin line. If you looked back and connected the holes with a line, it would have been surprisingly straight. By the way, this line was not by the most busy parts of the beach. It was well north of that. Again, I suspect that the weekenders cleaned the more busy areas.
It took me a while to find the first good target, but after that they came fairly quickly. I used the first coin as a sign of a possible distribution pattern. In this case it turned out to be a coin line.
I used the first find as a possible indicator of the most productive zone - in this case not high, or low.
The second find supported the idea that there could be a coin line and that the most productive area would be just a little below, mid way between the water and the high tide mark.
The third find and additional finds were all in that narrow coin line.
I've often talked about using finds as indicators. Some will not be a part of a distribution pattern, but after finding one, the next thing I do is check to see if it might be a part of a pattern.
All the coins found in that line were discolored. That is important. A coin that was just dropped would not be a sign of a distribution pattern. Discolored coins that have been out there for a while are more likely to be relevant signs. That is especially true in areas where most coins are removed before long. A discolored coin that pops up in a heavily detected area probably came from somewhere - either washed up or washed out.
I'm always looking for something to tell me where to spend my time. First by looking at the beach and any features, considering hot spots that have been found in the past, and then by sampling.
At this point I could get into the details of how coin lines form, but that would take me a lot more time. I think I'll wind this topic up for now. Maybe I'll get into how such lines form some other time.
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Here is the auction catalog for Sothebys Oct. 1 Rarities Auction. There are over 200 lots of very fine coins to browse.
http://www.sothebys.com/pdf/2015/N09385/index.html
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Here is a very good paper on bioturbation and artifact movement. It shows how significant bioturbation can be.
http://alliance.la.asu.edu/rockart/scans/Balek.pdf
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There wasn't much wind this morning. I was disappointed that we didn't get more sand moved last night.
Wednesday and Thursday the surf will be up to around four feet if the predictions are correct.
Ida is supposed to become a hurricane in a few days. It looks like she'll stay out in the Atlantic though. It doesn't look like she'll affect us.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
