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Maybe you've heard of the London Hammer (London Texas not London England). It is a controversial object that is used as evidence by one famous creationist, but it is highly disputed.
Here is an abstract from an article about the London hammer.
An iron and wooden hammer, sometimes called the "London Artifact" or "London Hammer," found by local hikers in a creek bed near London, Texas in 1936, has been promoted by Carl Baugh and other strict creationists as an out-of place artifact. They maintain that the hammer, which was partially embedded in a small, limy rock concretion, originated in a Cretaceous rock formation (or an Ordovician or Silurian one, depending on the account), thus contradicting the standard geologic timetable. However, the hammer was not documented in situ, and has not been reliably associated with any specific host formation. Other relatively recent implements have been found encased in by similar nodules, and can form within centuries or even decades under proper conditions (Stromberg, 2004). The hammer in question was probably dropped or discarded by a local miner or craftsman within the last few hundred years, after which dissolved limy sediment hardened into a nodule around it. Although a brief rebuttal to Baugh's hammer claims was made by Cole (1985), Baugh and a few other creationists continue to promote it. This review provides further analysis of the hammer and creationist claims about it.
It would be interesting to find out who lost it and when, but the reason I mention it is that it is an encruted object (EO) and we find many encrusted objects along the Treasure Coast. Below is an example of one found on the Treasure Coast. I've shown others in the past.
Encrusted objects can remain in fairly good conditions within the crust, like the London Hammer. In other cases the remaining iron is mostly or entirely gone. In some cases, there is nothing left but an impression of the original iron object.
The London hammer seems to me to be remarkable. I doubt that it is as old as Carl Baugh, the creationist, thinks.
As the abstract mentions. EOs can form in decades rather than centuries. It depends upon the situation.
Here is the link to the article about the London Hammer.
http://paleo.cc/paluxy/hammer.htm
I've seen what looks like sandstone form in not much more than a year. I was surprised to see it form so quickly, but it did.
I'm very skeptical of scientific dating of objects, especially those supposed to be thousands of years old.
I check EOs as much as possible. Other things can be stuck in them and you never know what might be inside. Using imaging such as x-ray can be helpful in viewing the contents.
Here is one that I thought was unusual. I showed it before. There is a Royal Palm soda bottle adhering to the EO.
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October was busy. Hurricane Matthew pretty much passed us by but it did a little damage, but it hit North Florida harder. Despite the lack of cuts on the Treasure Coast, the high water did leave some cobs. According to the blog poll nearly 10% of the detectorists found treasure coins on the Treasure Coast.
The most Google Plussed post of October was posted just before the Matthew arrived. It was the 10/5/16 Report about Matthew heading towards the Treasure Coast.
The most read post of October was the following post.
The surf didn't get quite as high today as I thought it might, but we're still supposed to have 4 - 6 feet for a couple of days and possibly another increase Wednesday.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
