12/9/16 Report - Improving Beach Detecting Conditions. Medieval Gold Pendant. Shipwreck-Eating Bacteria.

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

John Brooks Beach Early Afternoon Monday.

Another View of John Brooks Early Afternoon Monday.

Fort Pierce South Jetty Monday Afternoon.

We had a good north wind yesterday and today, and there is some erosion.

I looked out the window today and thought it looked like a good beach day.  It isn't what the snow birds call a good beach day, but it is what I would call a good beach day.  So many good detecting days in the past were cloudy, rainy, windy days.  It just has the right look, so I went out to see what was going on.

At John Brooks, to the north the last two high tides left cuts and beach conditions were improving.

I'm going to issue a "2" rating on my Treasure Coast Treasure Beach Detecting Conditions Scale.

I'm using my new level two criteria, which is less demanding than my old critria for level 2 conditions. Under my new criteria, a level 2 rating indicates improving or transitional conditions. Cob finds are very possible but not as certain.

Conditions will vary from one location to another, and a lot of the beaches still are showing a lot of renourishment sand.

A few days ago I mentioned that I expected some improvement in beach conditions as winter weather moves in. 

Surf Predictions From MagicSeaWeed.com

As you can see, according to these predictions, the surf will increase this weekend, and if the longer range predictions are correct, the surf will increase again next weekend.  This is a common winter pattern   In the winter we have cold fronts that come through and occasionally they churn things up enough to improve beach detecting conditions.  We'll see if that happens.

The renourishment sand at Fort Pierce South Jetty Park is nearly all gone.  You can see that in the photo above.

---

Archaeologists who say that it is better to leave wrecks hidden on the sea floor rather than salvage them could be very wrong.  A new type of proteo bacteria has been found that dissolves iron.  In fact it is attacking the Titanic.

One scientist in LiveScience had the following to say.

"In 1995, I was predicting that Titanic had another 30 years," Mann said. "But I think it's deteriorating much faster than that now. Perhaps if we get another 15 to 20 years out of it, we're doing good ... eventually there will be nothing left but a rust stain."

Iron makes up a good bit of the mass of old shipwreck remains.  Many spikes and other connectors that hold ships together are made of iron.  When the iron goes, not only are iron artifacts destroyed, but the ship can fall apart and scatter.  We can not depend upon shipwrecks remaining intact as long as they are hidden on the deep ocean floor.  Leaving wrecks untouched for the indefinite future is not a good strategy.

Here is the link to the article in LiveScience.

http://www.livescience.com/9079-species-rust-eating-bacteria-destroying-titanic.html

--

Here is an article about a gold medieval pendant find made by a young boy.  One of my all-time most read posts featured the report of this pendant being found.  The pendant has been studied and is now on display at the British museum.  This article is about that.

The article says, A 500-year-old gold reliquary, beautifully engraved with the names of the Magi and images of Christ and St Helena, which was found by a four-year-old playing with his father's metal detector, has gone on display for the first time at the British Museum...

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/dec/21/medieval-pendant-british-museum

---

If the wind continues from the north, the beach could continue to improve, especially with the higher surf that is predicted.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net